Anything Brighter
by Black Hawk
Summary: All the coy smiles and misdirections that Lucifer has come to rely upon don't distract Chloe from the handful of moments she has happened to catch him unawares. The eerie tightness in his dark eyes when he thinks no one is looking twists something inside of her in response.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note:** This either takes place sometime before the final two episodes or is AU. _

**Anything Brighter**

It begins like nausea creeping over his skin. He delights at first, as he does with every new humanoid sensation. He listens to it like a distant pleasant melody, wondering how it will change and in turn change him. Then the pleasantness stops. The melody is discordant and he doesn't want to listen anymore, but he doesn't have a choice because the sensation won't leave. When he's by himself he can trace its tentacles back to their root. It was never really his skin at all that felt it, but his insides. The sensation comes from somewhere so deep in his chest that he doubts it can actually be within his body. After all, he isn't thick enough to harbor something so dark and pulsing radiating from such a hollow abyss.

 _Or am I?_

Lucifer studies his naked form in the mirror, his dark eyes darting over the pale curves and lines of his torso. When he twists, his skin ripples over his ribs like ruffled feathers. The thought makes his gaze slide up to where his wings should be. He narrows his eyes, not at his scars, but at the thinness of his form. How could the nauseating darkness have delved so deep in his slight figure as to feel rooted in the ancientness of his being, and yet not have a single physical manifestation? Just to be sure, he runs a hand along what he can reach of his back, certain there must be a hole left somewhere by this burrowing thing, but there is nothing. Only smoothed skin and the little bumps that now pepper his flesh when he is cold. Cold. Cold.

 _Is darkness always cold? Or is it warm? Perhaps it is nothing. How have I never noticed before?_

It's the unpredictability of the sensation that irks him, for even when he isn't directly feeling the hollow tug, he knows it hasn't left. He knows it will be back. For now, however, he pretends he doesn't know this. After all, he spends his entire life on earth pretending. Imagining he is human with all of their impulses and desires and instincts. Instincts are the trickiest ones to get his mind around.

When he first arrived, he was keen to try everything. There was no sin in sex that didn't harm anyone (unless, of course, that was an explicit part of the fun), but instead great bodily pleasure. The same went for food and fine clothing, fast cars, hot baths, alcohol, and the occasional dalliance with drugs. Sensual pleasures that he enjoyed because he had a body. Because after learning all about such things while in Hell, he was insatiably curious to try them himself. After all, how was he meant to judge without experiencing human hedonism first?

But what he was only just understanding was that humans were more complicated than his simple pursuit of pleasure. What he had thought was all commonplace fun was actually, almost always, a result of instinct. The instinct to procreate, to eat, to stay warm, to escape. Escape. For someone created without instincts, Lucifer understands escapism the best. It is the others that baffle him.

No matter how he tries to escape, however, nothing can shield him from the apathy inside that only seems to grow. When he's feeling good, he thinks about confiding in Linda, but something about the weightiness of the thing always stops him from speaking to his therapist.

 _If I speak it, it will become real. Then what?_

He doesn't think Chloe notices because it is quiet when he is around her. He wonders if whatever it is could be frightened by her cunning gaze and seeming unending patience.

But Chloe does notice. She has noticed ever since Father Frank was killed. All the coy smiles and misdirections that Lucifer has come to rely upon since then don't distract her from the handful of moments she has happened to catch him unawares. The eerie tightness in his dark eyes when he thinks no one is looking twists something inside of her in response. Her life is complicated enough as it is without adding this twist to her existence, and sometimes she is mad at Lucifer because of it. Mad because she knows that he won't answer her even if she asks. Because he turns his lips in a smile the moment he feels her gaze. Because he would rather straighten his posture and look like he was suddenly on stage than acknowledge the silent question in her eyes. But mostly, she is mad because neither of them could ever undo the twist her worry over him has placed in her chest and deep down, she doesn't want to. She likes feeling her connection to him there, even if it is sometimes aggravating or bothersome.

Lucifer is odd. She has spent many of her lunch breaks reading articles about Asperger's and various other possible explanations for why "humanity," as he often calls it, is a mystery to him. As if he isn't an active participant. As if he's a spectator. She has no doubt that he feels very deeply, but his inability to express himself and his childlike interpretation of his own emotions intrigues her. At times she feels as if she is talking to one of Trixie's friends, but at others, she hears something very old in his voice. As if he is torn between the thrill of novelty and the boring sameness of disappointment, but was somehow born between the two extremes. Sometimes she wonders if the pull of both is tearing him apart. But he doesn't fit tidily under any diagnosis, and she doesn't enjoy thinking of his mind as something fundamentally different than hers.

Not when his heart beat so strongly against her cheek when she awoke in his arms the night she had tried to sleep with him. Lucifer had fallen asleep, as well, sitting up, albeit somewhat slumped on his side, and for several peaceful minutes, there was only the steady drumming under her ear. The warmth of his body. The unvoiced thread that connected them. Unvoiced.

 _If I speak it, it will become real. Then what?_

She had half a mind to find out that night, but then she got up to pee and the flush of alcohol surged back into brain and the next thing she knew, she was stripping and cursing. Not her most eloquent moment. Then again, her only eloquent moment in life was her daughter. Chloe had never been graceful but rather seemed to possess an awkward kindness that her mother had once compared to wielding a bag of bricks. Dan has certainly found fault with her unpredictable outbursts and withdrawals of affection but Lucifer has never so much as commented. She has abandoned him at crime scenes often enough that she is certain he is aware of her sometimes impulsive nature. He seems to take it all in stride, as he did the night she tried to seduce him.

For that alone, she owes him her support however she can. He is just making it ridiculously difficult for her to give it, bag of bricks or not.

One afternoon while working a murder investigation, Chloe ignores his protestations while he is in the car with her and takes him to the school to pick up Trixie. She smirks the entire ride home as her daughter peppers Lucifer with requests to be her show and tell, invites to her stuffed animal parties, and questions about why he always dresses like he is getting married. More than once, Chloe knows Lucifer is fixing her with the expression of a drowning man staring at an impassive lifeguard.

As she unlocks the front door, Chloe receives a text from the babysitter. "Sarah can't be here for another hour."

"Yay," Trixie chants, hopping up and down and latching onto the pockets of Lucifer's suit. "Then we have time to play."

Chloe watches the tall man visibly fight a sneer off of his upper lip as he tries to detangle the girl from his jacket. "Fortunately for me, there are such things as taxis."

Trixie mock-pouts and whines "You're leaving?" at the same time that Chloe shoves the door open and rolls her eyes with, "I'll make you a sandwich."

"Yeah," Trixie enthuses, tugging the man more than twice her height into the cool house. "We can have a snack and watch TV and be kitties."

Lucifer fixes Chloe with a painful smile and a flat, "Oh, goodie," as he is yanked past her.

Chloe mouths, "thank you" as she shuts the door, and for a brief moment, the discomfort slides off of her partner's face, replaced with something akin to pride. No matter how he protests, Chloe knows he is always happy to please her, and she's not above occasionally using that knowledge to her advantage.

Trixie immediately turns on the TV and starts giving Lucifer instructions on how kitties sit on the couch, curling up to demonstrate while Chloe starts making turkey sandwiches in the kitchen. Through the somewhat open floorplan, she can lean out of the kitchen to keep an eye on the pair in case Lucifer becomes condescending.

"You would be a fluffy black one," the little girl orates on the sofa opposite his. "And I would be a calico. Do you know what a calico is?"

"I don't care."

"It has like, an orange-brown and black and white coat. I really want one but daddy is allergic."

"This suddenly got interesting. What happens to him?"

"His eyes and nose get all puffy and red."

Though she arches a brow, Chloe ignores Lucifer's half of the conversation, opting instead to pretend she wasn't listening as she arranges slices of bread, for she knows he only wants a reaction out of her.

"That doesn't sound very comfortable."

"It's not," Trixie continues, stretching out on her couch. "It itches, too."

The detective can hear the grin on his face as he replies, "Why, Beatrice, we simply must get you a kitten then, _mustn't_ we?"

Chloe groans and throws her head back as her daughter starts bouncing around on the cushions. "Can we, Mommy? Can we?"

"Oh, no mommy involved, tiny human. _I_ will be happy to get you a kitten. Consider it a favor."

"Thank you, Lucifer," Trixie gushes around her lisp, launching herself at him in a hug. The way Lucifer smacks against the back of the couch as if the little girl were assaulting him makes Chloe stifle a snort. She will set the pair of them straight later. For now, she will let Lucifer squirm in her daughter's affection, for seeing him out of his comfort zone is oddly rewarding.

"Ah, ah, ah," he tutts as he tries to detangle himself. "You're wrinkling my Armani. Have more respect."

"Can I pick it out?" Trixie asks without budging.

Lucifer sighs emphatically when he realizes the little girl isn't releasing him anytime soon. His hands have been on her waist to try to pry her off but now stay there as he calls for reinforcements. "Detective!"

Determined to let him navigate this on his own, Chloe sticks her phone to her ear and peeks out around the corner with a furrowed brow, pretending she is in the middle of a call. "Not now, Lucifer."

"You haven't been speaking," he observes, his dark brows lowered in confusion.

Chloe raises hers. "I'm on hold with the DMV. Play nicely."

A corner of Lucifer's upper lip twitches in response. Trixie pulls away enough to level her brown gaze with his and says in a hoarse speaking voice, "We have to be quiet."

"That isn't whispering," he replies in the same hoarse tone.

Chloe has to pivot away from the two to hide her laugh, waiting until she is out of sight before setting her phone down.

"Yes, it is."

"No, you're just speaking loudly without using your vocal chords."

"Vocal chords? What're vocal chords?"

"Trust me, I'm the last person your mother would want giving you anatomy lessons."

"Do kitties have vocal chords?"

There is a pause. When Chloe peeks back out, she is surprised to see that Lucifer has relaxed and that Trixie is slumped on his lap, as if he were going to read a story to her. Instead, they are both momentarily transfixed by a doll commercial. One of his hands is splayed on her back as if to keep her from falling when there is no danger. Trixie welcomes it as an invitation to stay exactly where she is.

In that moment, Lucifer looks different to Chloe. He isn't smiling. He doesn't have perfect posture. Her daughter has flung her own brick bag full of kindness and bullied her way onto his lap and he looks like he can't fight her back anymore. Like he doesn't want to. Because there is something so very delicate about the way he keeps his hand on the girl's back, as if he were a black feather that might drift away if either of them moves too suddenly.

"You smell," Trixie observes, peering up at him with a wrinkled nose. "I don't like cologne."

Lucifer languidly looks down at her, and Chloe braces herself for the moment to be shattered by an arrogant, inappropriate retort involving the word "spawn.". Instead, he narrows his eyes and points at the television. "I hope you know to never pay one iota of attention to marketing. I have never seen so much pink in my life, and trust me, I have seen a _lot_ of pink."

"I like pink."

"Well, you don't have to like pink if you don't want to like pink."

"I like other colors, too."

"Yes, like calico kittens."

Trixie grins and rises on her knees to smash her two small hands on his cheeks, announcing around a grin, "Calico cats are always girls."

To Chloe's surprise, Lucifer doesn't bat Trixie's hands away or twist out of her grasp. Instead, he smiles. Not the nearly painful one he uses on the rest of the world, but a small, soft one that actually changes his eyes. It makes him look so different that a chill spreads across the back of Chloe's neck. Something about the nuance and subtlety make him appear more human than he ever has, but she chases away the notion, for such thinking would mean that a part of her had never believed him to be fully human in the first place. The cruelty of the thought sickens her, but when faced with the softness of his face and body in response to her daughter, she is forced to acknowledge that she has done him an injustice. That he has never shown such softness to her, and as such, it was easier to categorize him as something else in her mind. As somehow invulnerable. Somehow simpler. Somehow less. Even if she doesn't want him to be.

"Case in point," Lucifer replies. "Lots of different colors because that's how people are made. No one is just one color."

Chloe almost drops the knife she is using to spread mustard. Though neither can see her, she feels a flush of heat from her chest, as if she has made a terrible, embarrassing mistake in front of a crowd.

Trixie doesn't answer, and when Chloe peeks back out, the girl is watching the pony TV show, but Lucifer is studying her intently, his face tucked into his neck giving him a double chin, making him look so flawed that Chloe feels wrong for observing the scene when he thinks that she is distracted.

His voice is so soft that she can't make out exactly what he says next, but it sounds similar to, "What's it like?"

"What?" Trixie replies, her eyes still on the TV.

Lucifer doesn't look away from the girl's profile. "Having a mother."

Chloe can't move.

Trixie giggles as she returns her attention to him. "That's silly, Lucifer."

"Yes," he whispers. "It is."

Trixie returns her attention to the show and Lucifer looks as if he doesn't dare speak again. His head bows somewhat, and he seems so small and broken that Chloe shuffles back over to the sandwiches without even registering her feet moving.

"God damn calico cat," she mutters as she finishes the sandwiches.

Lucifer doesn't know why, but having Trixie sit in his lap long enough to carelessly lean her head against his chest as she watches TV, as if he'd been there since her birth, makes the dark thing inside throb and crawl. At length, he has an inkling. The little girl's warmth is making the sensation uncomfortable. Weakening it. For the first time since the hollowness arrived, Lucifer has a measure of relief.

 _ **Please share your thoughts! :)**_  
 _ **I'm currently in-between writing novels and couldn't resist this little story. There is at least one more chapter to come!**_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's Note:** Thank you guys all so much for your encouraging reviews! :)_

 **Anything Brighter**

 **2.**

"Thank you, Detective," he chirps late that evening as he unbuckles his seat belt to exit Chloe's car as she pulls up outside of Lux. The bass from the club reverberates into the vehicle even from their spot on the curb out back. "Though I fear I was of little assistance given that we never actually got to interrogate anyone."

Chloe knows that he must find the current case boring, for it has every indication of being the all too common instance of a spouse committing murder. No puzzle. No novel motive. Just affairs and jealousy and…

She places her hand on Lucifer's arm as he tugs on the handle of his door. He immediately hesitates and meets her gaze. For half a heartbeat, his dark eyes hold both a question and the tightness that has slowly begun to unnerve her. Half a heartbeat. Then the emotion is swept aside as his lips part to make some sort of innuendo, but Chloe only lets him get halfway through his smile before cutting him off.

"I heard what you asked."

He blinks. "Pardon?"

"Trixie." She looks down at her hand on his suited arm and can feel him following her gaze. With a soft sigh, she lets go to kill the engine.

Lucifer's brows twitch together. "Detective, if this is about the kitten-"

Chloe keeps her gaze on the dimly lit back entrance to the club through the windshield. "It's not about the kitten."

"Well, isn't that a relief?" he replies with a grin. "I'll be sure to drop it off in Detective Douche's waiting arms first thing in the morning. That way he'll have all day to build up an allergic-"

"You're not getting my daughter a kitten."

Lucifer's brows lower dramatically. "Are you certain you're not a sadist? You have a nasty penchant for ruining my fun."

Chloe arches a brow and fixes her blue gaze on him, reminding herself to be gentler with her bag of bricks when all she wants to do is take a swing at the tall man sitting beside her. "What happened to her?" she calmly asks instead.

"To whom? The metaphorical kitten?" He looks so genuinely confused that she knows it's not an act. That nearly all of the times that she has thought he was trying to needle her actually stemmed from some sort of inability to perceive and interpret what is right in front of him. Because he is odd. Different. But not less. Never less.

"No, not the metaphorical kitten," she snaps before she can help herself. "To your mother. I heard you asking Trixie what it's like to have a mother."

Lucifer scoffs, his brows lowering further as he leans away from her the slightest bit. "You most certainly did _not_."

She fixes him with her withering, immovable stare.

He squirms. "You were on the phone."

"I lied."

"You _what_?" he squawks.

Chloe shrugs noncommittally. "I faked that I was on hold so that I could eavesdrop. I wanted to make sure you weren't going to, I don't know, corrupt my daughter any more than you already have."

"Oh come off it," he whines, throwing his shoulders back against the seat. "That cannot be the first time she has asked you what a hooker is."

When Chloe once again uses the stare, he blinks.

" _You_ named her, not me. I wasn't even around then. Well, not in this mortal realm, at least."

"You're not answering my question."

"Because there isn't one," he snips back, pivoting so that his torso is facing her.

" _Everyone_ has a mother."

"Not me."

"Oh, so, what, you just came out of the ground?" she asks, flinging her hand up.

"Absolutely not," Lucifer retorts, his brows still lowered. "Do I look like a potato?"

"I never said you looked like a potato," she clips back, all poise forgotten.

"You've seen me naked often enough that the words 'chiseled marble' ought to be more at the forefront of your mind than a lumpy vegetable."

"Will you stop taking this as some sort of attack?" she replies, making her ponytail bounce as she shakes her head in exasperation. " _You_ called yourself a potato, not me."

Lucifer's brows have nearly completely hooded his dark eyes as he twists the door handle. "Wrong answer."

She gapes in shock for a moment. _How the hell did this escalate?_

"You are being so childish," Chloe admonishes as she struggles out of her seatbelt when Lucifer slides out of his seat. He ignores her and shuts the door. Groaning, she scrambles out of her side of the vehicle to peer at him over the hood.

"Says the pot to the kettle," he calls over his shoulder as he starts towards the back entrance to the club.

"I'm sorry," she shouts.

He stops walking and spins around to face her with a smug smile. "Didn't catch that. Can you repeat yourself?"

Chloe shakes her head again. "I didn't mean to salt a wound or… strike a nerve or whatnot."

"Oh, but you didn't," he replies, crossing back over to her but pausing a few yards short.

"Whatever. It's none of my business." She readies her keys and is about to duck back inside when Lucifer replies.

"How can I be bothered by something I've never had?"

Though her head is bowed, she can hear a strain in his voice that she knows isn't on his face. Not just a strain. More than a strain. A plea.

Chloe straightens to hold his gaze over the roof of her car once more. Her voice is soft. If she's not careful, she'll use too much air and blow the black feather away again as she has done dozens of times in the past. "Lucifer."

"How could I miss something I've never known?" he continues, holding out his hands, and the mocking tone in his voice is at war with the genuine confusion he's trying to keep from his face. If she didn't spend so much time around him, she would have missed the subtle change.

 _Like everyone else does._

"Because you've observed it," she replies. "With me. And Trixie." Her shoulders slump. "Lucifer, I'm sorry."

He lets out a mirthless chuckle. "Why do you keep saying that? You have nothing to apologize for."

"I mean, I'm sorry that your mother abandoned you or left you or wasn't there for you. Whatever it is she did, I'm sorry that you have to live with that weight. You don't deserve it."

Lucifer cocks his head and blinks, studying her for a moment as if stuck between tearing apart her response and collapsing into it.

"I know my own mother drives me crazy half the time," Chloe continues with a small smile, "but I would always rather have crazy than nothing."

Lucifer lets out a soft sound of agreement, shifting his gaze to the pavement between his shoes.

"The thought of Trixie not having anyone…" She swallows hard, her gaze unfocused. "No child should have to go through that."

To her surprise, he lifts his head with a small smile. "Nothing to fear there. Beatrice has an excellent mother."

Chloe smirks. "I do my best."

Lucifer peers at the club over his shoulder as the bass climbs a few decibels with a new song. "I never was a child," he says so softly that Chloe isn't certain she hears it. "I was nothing…" He returns his attention to her. "And then I was something."

"You were adopted?"

"There was a void," he continues, his voice so light that it is nearly whimsical. Chloe feels the hairs on the back of her neck rising as she listens. "Nothing but a void and our Father brought us into being to dwell in the nothingness while he created the world. Until then, it was just my brothers and sisters and I. Adrift. It sounds terrifying but it wasn't then because we didn't know any better. When you don't know any better, you have no context." His voice grows stronger as he presses on. "It was only after there was all of Creation to fill the void that any of us had any understanding. Any perspective on how we had existed before. The loneliness… the hollow echo of every thought... After I saw the world, I couldn't go back. I could never go back."

Chloe's brows are nearly touching. His voice was measured and calm but she has never heard such poesy from him before. The hairs have stood on end on her arm and she rubs a wayward hand over one, trying to chase away a chill that has nothing to do with the temperature.

 _Don't shout. Don't use too much air or you'll blow him away._

"Well, I'm no psychologist," she begins, "but it sounds to me like you _are_ describing childhood. None of us can go back and most of us don't want to. Once you leave home and go out in the world…" she pauses, looking around her at the dark cityscape. "You gain perspective. Everything changes. You grow up.."

Lucifer scowls. "But you had someone to teach you."

"What about your father?" she asks, setting her keys on the roof of the car with a soft jingle. "I know he's not the greatest, but he must've done a decent job raising you."

Lucifer scoffs. "What makes you say that?"

"Because you turned out all right."

He shoots her a fleeting look, as if expecting her to reveal a joke, but when her expression remains sincere, he appears baffled. "No thanks to him."

"Then maybe you became a good man in spite of him."

"A good man?" he repeats as if she has insulted him.

Chloe braces herself for another fight, but instead, Lucifer's legs seem to be suddenly unstable. He sits down rather ungracefully on the curb. Alarm shoots through her but before she can ask if he is all right, he lets out a frustrated noise. Shutting the car door, she crosses over to him.

"This is all so _bloody_ confusing," he bemoans, as she makes it to his side. His right hand moves to his chest, impulsively clutching at something that isn't there. His eyes are so unfocused that she doesn't think he's even aware of the action.

"Then _talk_ to me, Lucifer. Help me understand." She takes a seat a few inches from him, wishing the bass in the building behind them wasn't so loud.

"How can I be angry at a mother I never had?" he asks the air in front of him.

"I don't know," Chloe replies, her pulse quickening over the rawness in his voice and the way his hand has remained on his breastbone. "But I would be, too."

Lucifer chuckles softly. "I don't even know if I really am angry or if I'm just…"

"Envious?"

He looks at her sharply but Chloe holds his gaze. There is something clear in her light eyes that pierces through the agitated heat in his chest and brain where he knows the ugly thing to be inside of him. When he realizes that she is right, he can't hold her gaze. Instead, he pulls his hand away from his chest and studies it.

 _So human. So mortal._

She lets the moment of silence stretch between them before speaking softly. "I don't have access to UK databases, but I could see what I could find out about your birth mother if you want me to."

Lucifer sucks in a deep breath, as if he is smoking, but doesn't exhale as he lowers his hand. "That's very kind of you, Detective, but as I've said, there is nothing to find."

Chloe shakes her head. "Even if you were left on someone's doorstep, there would still be a record of your birth at the hospital."

" _Again_ ," he presses, and the slight warning in his voice reminds her once more not to kick up a breeze that might knock the feather down. "Humans did not _exist_ when I was created. I was not born. I have no mother. There _is_ no record until five years ago. We've been through this."

"Right," she agrees with a nod.

" _Yes_ , right," he argues back. "I know you don't believe me, but it's the truth. I'm _not_ lying."

She bites her tongue to keep from pushing back, knowing that if she could just get him to open up a bit more, to give her some inkling of how he was so severely damaged to have become a man who thinks he's the devil, then she could help him unfold his crumpled being. But he is too delicate for that and she is too clumsy. One wrong move and she would split him open and helplessly watch him bleed out before withdrawing forever. And she couldn't handle that. Not now. Not ever. Irrevocably damaged or not, he is whole enough and doing his damndest to thrive. She can't ask more of him than that. "Okay."

"Okay?" he repeats, blinking in surprise.

She nods in agreement. "Okay."

Lucifer tugs unnecessarily on one of his sleeves as if adjusting it. "This is sudden."

"Because I don't want to argue anymore."

"My dear detective, we are not arguing," he insists around a grin. "We're discussing."

Chloe arches a brow. "You didn't seem to think it was a _discussion_ when you thought I compared you to a potato."

The smile immediately slides off of Lucifer's face. Chloe tenses for what she is sure will be a diva moment. Instead, the most unlikely thing happens. Lucifer snorts. Then he snorts again. It seems to take him as long as it takes her to realize that he is laughing. Genuinely laughing. The oddity of the situation makes his amusement spread to her, as well. When he hears her deep, guffawing giggle, it makes his all the louder.

"Maze will be out here any minute, thinking that I'm on something and demanding a taste."

"She keeps a sharp eye on you, doesn't she?" Chloe asks as her laughter calms.

"Even when I don't want her to."

"Kind of like a mother."

Lucifer arches his neck back and groans. "Trust me. You do _not_ want to make _that_ comparison unless you believe in the whole Oedipus Complex."

Chloe gives him one of her patronizing gazes, both daring him to say more and warning him that he is being gross. "I mean, she watches out for you because she cares."

"Oh, come off it, Detective," he insists, nudging her gently with his shoulder. "She only cares about my reputation as the devil. You're the only one actually watching out for _me_."

"I wouldn't have to if you had more…" she trails off, distracted by something in his expression. Lucifer listens, waiting for the rest of her jab, a small, playful smile on his lips and in his dark eyes. For the second time that day, she realizes he looks different. Subtle. Soft.

 _I've made him soft._

His eyes search hers and his smile broadens a little when her silence confuses him. "Don't leave me hanging. If I had more… what? Police training? Discipline? Emotional intelligence? Potatoes?"

Chloe hesitates as she feels the twist inside of her from him hum. Her voice is soft. "If you had more self-preservation. Sometimes you're so focused on catching the wrongdoer that you put yourself in danger. No, not sometimes. A lot of times."

"And does that upset you?"

A flicker of fear tightens his eyes and mouth the moment the words are out, as if he can't believe that he let them escape.

"Of course it does," she insists, leaning her shoulder against his in turn. "I care about you, Lucifer. I don't want anything bad to happen to you in the future any more than I want it to have happened in the past."

He studies her face for the length of several seconds as his expression morphs from apprehension to something fractured. He takes a shuddering breath and for a moment, she's worried he's going to start crying. Instead, he studies his shoes and the pumping of the bass behind them echoes their heartbeats. The moment is long enough for Chloe to start to wonder if she has overstayed her welcome. She's about to shift to move when he speaks softly.

"Thank you."

Her breathing hitches in her chest when he meets her gaze. She can't tell if it's a trick of the dim light or the warmth coming from the twist he put in her, but he looks so much younger than his years. In that moment, she hates his mother for abandoning him and his father for being so strict. Or maybe she hates just how intoxicating it is to see his softness and just how prickly she usually is around him, preventing it from showing.

"I don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to you," he continues, his voice gaining strength, "so you best not let the spawn walk all over you or any bad guys get too close or they'll have me to answer to."

Chloe grins. She can't help it. She hopes she looks as foolish as she feels. She presses more of her side into his and rolls her eyes for show. "Unlike you, I am a _trained_ officer of the law."

He lets out a soft chuckle, leaning against her weight. He wants to wrap an arm around her. To invite in her warmth and hope that it fills him. But he is also frightened by something so bright. So unpredictable. As an angel, he felt emotions, but they were big and blocky. Humanity, on the other hand, rarely ever reached colors so bold as what was commonplace in the Heavens. Instead, they were left with a rainbow that included every muted tone as well as every vibrant hue. He enjoys learning all of the shades aside from the nasty ones like the hollow void that seems to have crept into the core of his being of late.

 _Hang on, where is it?_

Chloe is peering up at the rectangular strip of night sky that she can see between Lux's Art Deco roof and the neighboring buildings. Lucifer follows her gaze. The smog and streetlights have dimmed what was once a spectacular beauty. He focuses on that, on the dearth of stars, testing to see if it will feed the pulsing apathy within as nearly every other discouraging or negative thought has over the past few weeks. When he feels no ache in response, a thin line forms between his brows.

"Isn't that odd?" he breathes to himself.

"I know," Chloe replies. "And to think people used to navigate by the stars and planets. LA would be royally screwed."

"Huh," he chirps, straightening a bit, inadvertently pulling away from her.

"What?" she asks, studying his profile.

"You've made me feel better," he replies as he twists his torso to study her. Though his dark brows are knitted in confusion there is a small smile on his lips. Lips that she has to remind herself in that moment are not for kissing after the confusion of her drunken night with him.

"Good. I'm glad I could help." She gives his arm a squeeze. "But I should get home."

"Yes, yes, of course. Save the babysitter from _My Little Pony_ hell."

"I better not be," Chloe replies as she rises, rubbing her hands together for warmth, "Trixie should be in bed by now."

Lucifer grunts noncommittally as he stands.

"And _My Little Pony_ hell?" she repeats, scrunching up her face at him as she makes her way towards her car. "You didn't look like you were suffering _that_ much this afternoon."

His eyes widen slightly. "You've clearly never fully sat and watched a half hour of children's television programming. As if the cartoons themselves aren't grating enough, the adverts are even worse. Peddling beauty supplies and accessories to toddlers? It's barbaric."

Chloe smirks as she grabs her keys off the roof.

"Thank goodness Trixie has a mother to help her wade through the cesspool of gender-specific advertising, ay?"

"Since when are you a Feminist?" she teases as she opens her door.

"Now, now, no need for name calling," he admonishes.

Chloe chuckles softly and sits down behind the wheel without closing the door. Lucifer is standing on the curb, his hands in his pockets and a playful smile still on his face, albeit much gentler than the one he usually hides behind. She wishes she could hug him goodbye. Kiss his cheek. Run a hand through his hair to try to impart some strength.

 _Or even just wish him sweet dreams._

But Chloe is impulsive and has to remind herself that now is not the time. That no matter how hard she tries, she will never be able to fathom the true expanse of the wound in him, and as such, she had to let him set the pace, if there is any pace at all. Trixie might have been able to bully her kindness into him but Chloe wouldn't dare. There is too much at stake. For both of them.

So instead, all that comes out is, "Goodnight, Lucifer."

He gives her a little bow. "Drive safely, Detective."

She closes the door and starts the engine. He waits outside the club until she is out of his sight. Then he lets out a long breath he doesn't realize he's been holding. It fogs in front of him. It's cold out. He hadn't noticed. Not with her at his side.

He enters Lux through the back and weaves his way through the crowd, ignoring Maze's questioning glare as he passes the bar. Once upstairs, he pauses. His quarters seem vacuous and dark while the music blares below. He goes to pour himself a drink but stops short. Instead, he crosses over to the balcony and peers up at what he can see of the sky. He rests a hand over his chest, waiting for the familiar ache inside to begin as he scans the darkness for stars. He is alone in the relative quiet and that used to be enough to awaken the rift in his being, but the rooted sourness remains mute. Lucifer doesn't think he has silenced it, but he welcomes the reprieve all the same.

He knows the feeling has something to do with Father Frank. With his frustration and grief and over his death. With the smallness he now feels knowing that doing everything right is no guarantee. That in the mortal sphere, he will always lose people. Lose. Lose.

 _But somehow, the humans limp along all right, despite knowing this fact since birth. Or maybe in spite_ , he hears Chloe's voice add in his mind.

Apathy has been a new feeling for him, and though it may have started like a nauseous, discordant tune on his skin, there is also another, far more harmonious melody warming his entire being. It is electric and unwieldy and he is powerless in front of it, but he likes being forced to trust this new feeling, even when he doesn't think he has the energy. Because trusting it means trusting her. Because in all his thousands of years, Lucifer has never experienced anything brighter than Chloe Dekker. For now, she is enough to wither the depression inside.

And just like that, some of the haze shifts overhead and he can glimpse a star.

"Well," he muses to himself around a grin. "What do you know?"

 _ **Please share your thoughts! :)**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note:**_ _Thank you kindly, again, for all of your supportive reviews and comments! I only foresaw this being a two chapter story but if you're all keen for more then I certainly don't mind finding an excuse to spend a bit more time with our favorite fallen angel and detective._

 **Anything Brighter**

 **3.**

The week has been a wretched one for Chloe. She has had to make up excuses for why Dan hasn't come to pick up Trixie when he is supposed to, and why he wasn't there for Taco Tuesday. She detests lying to her daughter, even if it is all in the name of ensuring that the girl feels secure and loved. She hasn't seen Lucifer since the night she dropped him off at Lux and hasn't had a spare minute to even contact him to chat. Though she scolds herself for it, there is a brief flare of disappointment every time she receives a text or a call and it isn't him.

"Stupid," she mutters to herself as she drives to the gym. "Stupid, stupid, _stupid_ , Chloe."

When all the weight machines are taken and she ends up running on the treadmill, her frustration is peaked by the fact that she could have just gone for a jog at home. Exercise has always calmed her, and right now, she needs some space without the stresses of her soon-to-be ex-husband behaving like a high schooler who doesn't want to confront her, her mother's OCD requests to know an exact date that she can take Trixie to Disneyland, and her own confusion over the hope she feels buoying up every time she thinks about sitting with Lucifer on the curb when he said that she had helped him.

The following day, she had sent him a text asking how he was but never heard back.

Sighing, she closes her eyes and turns up the music, focusing on the rhythm of her feet, her heart, and her breathing. Sweating now, she is starting to feel the tension leave her body. How anyone could turn to drugs or alcohol or eating when upset instead of exercising has always confused her, for it was the best way she knew to make her body feel utterly spent while her mind sharpened.

A rap song comes on. Rolling her eyes, she snatches up her phone to press skip on Pandora, a risk she is willing to take at the moment, pretending that she doesn't remember the club owner expressing a similar distaste for the genre the first day they met.

 _Get him out of your head, Chloe_ , she scolds herself.

Which is easier said than done when she realizes that she has no less than seven texts from him that she hadn't noticed while jogging. They're in all caps and make her immediately shut off the machine.

 _ **CHLOE.**_

 _ **PLEASE, COME QUICKLY.**_

 _ **NO, COME IMMEDIATELY.**_

 _ **THIS IS AN EMERGENCY.**_

 _ **USE YOUR FLASHY LIGHTS AND SPEED.**_

 _ **IT'S NOT LIKE YOU CAN GIVE YOURSELF A SPEEDING TICKET, CAN YOU?**_

 _ **THIS IS NOT A JOKE. I NEED HELP.**_

Hopping off of the treadmill, Chloe only spares a moment to write back _**OMW**_ before power walking to the locker room to grab her bag. Without bothering to shower or change her clothes, she halfheartedly towels off then jogs to her car once in the parking lot, her heart feeling like it's stuttering as she frets over what new peril her partner could have landed himself in. He was uncannily good at making enemies and letting them close. She tries to console herself that he wouldn't be making jokes about speeding if it really were an emergency, but then again, Lucifer seemed incapable of _not_ making jokes even under the most dangerous of circumstances.

"Shit," she curses when she hits a stagnant stretch of traffic merging onto Sunset Blvd. Biting her lip, she wonders if she really should place one of her lights on her hood. Instead, she creeps along until she reaches a side street and makes her way through a ritzy residential neighborhood, keeping a weather eye open for pedestrians since she is driving ten miles over the speed limit. She thinks back on their recent case involving a spousal homicide. Lucifer hadn't even had a chance to interview the wife, but he had met her. Could he have said or done something while Chloe wasn't around that would make the woman put out a hit on him? The family was suspected of having mafia connections.

Wiping some of the sweat off of her temple, she goes through a mental checklist of where she placed her gun and ID in her bag before working out. How Lucifer made it through a week without police assistance before he met her is something she intends to ask him about. Then again, Maze seemed to have served more for a bodyguard role back in the early days before they seemed to have had some sort of falling out.

By the time she reaches Lux, she is sweating anew, though not from her run. After hastily parking, she snatches up her gun and badge then jogs inside. She uses the personal access fob Lucifer gave her ages ago to head straight for his quarters. The elevator doors close sluggishly, and as they do, she holds her breath, listening for any noise from a struggle upstairs. The club isn't open yet. There is only the whirring hum of the elevator.

When the doors open, she dashes into the room.

"Lucifer?!"

"Help!"

Chloe immediately aims her gun as she jogs past the bar. To her surprise, she finds Lucifer sitting on his bed, glaring up at Maze who seems to be holding something out of his reach. The expression he casts Chloe looks for all the world like a child who has just got an adult on his side. The smugness on his face alone makes the gun in her arms waver.

"I can't believe this," Maze barks, "You called _her_?"

"I didn't _call_ anyone," he seethes back. "If you were clever enough to have figured out my passcode you would've seen that for yourself."

Chloe's dark brows are now lowered over her eyes as she studies the device in Maze's hands, double-checking that it really is just a phone. When she shoots a look back at Lucifer, it's clear that he is unharmed, yet something about him is fundamentally… off.

"Lucifer," Chloe begins as she lowers her gun. "Why're you wearing pajamas?"

He turns his smoldering eyes on her as if she had just suggested he make underwear out of a shaved poodle's fur. "They are not pajamas, Detective. It's _lounge_ wear."

"You can say that again," Maze scoffs. "You've been doing a lot of _loung_ ing lately."

"Well, excuse me," Lucifer retorts, a line between his brows, "but a man is entitled to wear sweatpants and a T-shirt when he is ill. Besides, it's still Calvin Klein."

"Wait a minute," Chloe says, lowering her gun completely. "You're sick?"

" _No_ ," Maze emphatically answers while Lucifer just as loudly replies with a "Yes."

Chloe shakes her head. The rush of relief she feels, coupled with the frustration over having been so alarmed makes her shove her gun back into its holster. She is still in her tank top and leggings, however, so she doesn't even have somewhere to buckle her belt. Instead, she tosses the gun and badge onto a bar stool and helps herself to a drink. She hears Maze snort behind her but ignores the taunt. "This is ridiculous," Chloe mutters under her breath.

"Told you," Maze agrees. Chloe turns around with her brandy just in time to see the other woman chuck the phone back at Lucifer. He lets it bounce off his thigh and land on the bed. As Maze strides past Chloe to the exit, she arches a scarred brow and whispers, "He's delusional."

"Ya think?" Chloe replies.

Maze hesitates a moment and Chloe shares her awkwardness over agreeing with the bartender on something for the first time. In the span of a second, they both seem to decide that it was an accident and leave it at that. Maze leaves. Chloe sips her drink. Out of the corner of her eye, she can catch Lucifer watching her, but he is staying silent and for the moment, all she wants to do is make him squirm in guilt.

"So," Chloe announces once she downs the last of the amber liquid, spinning to brace her elbows on the bar and face him. "It's an emergency because you have a cold?"

"I don't have a _cold_ ," Lucifer replies around a scowl. "And if you're only going to belittle me then you can walk your sexy, sweaty ass out that door. _Believe me_ , I've been berated enough already."

 _Sexy?_

Chloe narrows her eyes and doesn't budge. "If you don't have a cold and you're not injured, what could possibly merit Lucifer Morningstar wearing sweatpants?"

"I've _told_ you," he insists, irritation in his spine and voice, "I'm _ill_. Am I honestly the only one who hears the echo in here?"

"Fine," she assents lowly, shoving off the bar and striding over to him. Lucifer straightens fractionally as she does so, growing stiffer the closer she comes. Ignoring his tense body language, she sits down so hard beside him that the mattress jostles. He parts his lips, likely to make some sort of joke about her finally being on a bed with him, but her hand suddenly on his forehead seems to startle him into silence.

Chloe narrows her eyes, reading more into the fact that he has gone completely rigid under her touch than the warmth of his skin. He reminds her of a chained dog who has been straining to get out of its collar so long that it freezes once it realizes that a human is reaching around the sores it has made for the buckle.

"You don't seem warmer than usual," she observes.

As soon as her hand is removed, the life breathes back into him and he grins. "And how would you know without sampling my charms?"

She fixes him with her stare, waiting for him to connect the dots.

"Of course," he quietly concedes. "The night I _didn't_ sleep with you."

"That doesn't matter. All humans have a body temperature of around 98.6. You don't have a fever."

"Key word there being _humans_."

"Meaning I don't have to sleep with you to know what's normal."

"Precisely," he says around a grin. "Haven't you ever craved something a bit more than plain old vanilla?"

Chloe wants to hop to her feet and storm out, flipping him the bird, but holds herself back.

 _Calico cats_ , she chants in her head. _Calico cats._

"In fact," he continues in a suggestive tone, "While you're here…"

"You know what?" she snaps, losing the battle and glaring at him. "Just no. Why does everything have to be a sex joke to you?"

He raises his brows, leaning away from her as if she had just flung out a hand. "It doesn't have to be a joke if you're game."

Now she does throw her hands in the air. "I honestly have no idea how you've ever even had sex."

He lets out a distinctly nervous laugh. "I beg your pardon?"

"You think you're somehow coming onto me but you've literally just sat there this whole time, rigid as a middle-schooler who's practically sitting on his hands."

Lucifer scowls as he shifts his hands from either side of his hips and tucks them between his knees, only to let out a flustered huff as he realizes that's even worse.

Chloe shakes her head. "I mean, what do you actually do? Just lie there? You act you've never touched anyone in your life, or like no one's ever touched you."

"And who's to say they have?" he snips back as he resolves to fold his arms over his chest, staring at his knees.

"The very definition of sex is one body part touching another," she groans, practically to the ceiling.

"Are you _seriously_ trying to give me sex ed?" he squeaks, sneering at her.

"When someone's actions don't match up with their body language or words," she pontificates as if talking to someone far younger, "they _do_ seem like they need a bit of schooling."

With that, she rises and heads over to the bar to collect her things.

Lucifer lets out a rolling, incredulous laugh. "Oh, this is ridiculous."

"You're right. It is," she agrees with her back to him.

"You're just going to leave? All because I made a sex joke? Even _you_ aren't _that_ prudish."

She knows it was just a taunt but it pricks the back of her neck and her thin patience all the same. Thin because she had just violated multiple traffic laws in her panic to come to his aid. Thin because she had been so worried about his well being. Thin because she has let herself care.

"Coming from the man who has been trying to have sex with me from day one then chickened out at his first opportunity?" she says, peering at him as she gathers her belt off the barstool. "I'll take that for what it's worth: _nothing_."

Lucifer has risen to his feet, his lips parted and she hates the way she can literally see the struggle for a response in his dark eyes. After waiting a moment and receiving none, she shakes her head and strides towards the elevator.

"So if I slept with you that night, you wouldn't be leaving?" he calls after her.

The elevator doors open.

"You don't get it, Lucifer."

"No, I think I do, actually," he presses, his voice rising. "Maze is right. I am delusional. All this time, I thought you were different. Maybe I _wanted_ you to be different. But instead, you're just like all the others. If I don't have sex with you then I serve no purpose. Well, _excuse me_ for actually understanding, for the first time in my life, that it can mean something more than just a bit of fun. Than just two body parts touching."

Chloe stares at the elevator doors. The prickling of his words on the back of her neck has shifted into a chill. Maybe it's just the sweat, but she grows cold. She sees herself through different eyes. Grey eyes. Jaded eyes. Her affection is a clumsy bag of bricks. Men in the past have called her somewhat cold. Reserved. It is a part of her personality she has always tried to balance. But never has she been made to feel so diseased. The elevator doors close. Once they're shut, she stiffly turns to face him.

Her voice is soft because her throat is tight. "Is that really what you think of me?"

Though his lips are parted, he seems to have lost command of language. She doesn't blink and knows that she can't keep the disappointment out of her eyes. He presses his lips together and looks away. For some reason, the sight of just how wrinkled his shirt and sweatpants are makes her throat all the tighter. His hair is also void of product, curls making the short tufs twist in different directions. He has never looked messier and she has never felt messier.

"How could you ever think I'm that shallow?" she nearly whispers.

He lets out another mirthless chuckle, his focus on one of the plants on the balcony swaying in the breeze. "It's not a question of depth, Detective, but rather of desire."

"No." She takes a step towards him, shaking her head. "Don't try to divert this."

"I'm _diverting_ anything," he replies, returning his attention to her with his same, pained smile. "It's a simple truth about the world. Everything everyone does and ever has done has been out of some impulse to get what they want."

"Maybe that's how you've lived your life, but that isn't how I've lived mine," she insists, halting a few yards from him.

"Of course you have. You don't catch bad guys out of the goodness of your heart. You do it to help make the world a better place. That's a _want_ , Detective. A desire." He pauses, looking her up and down, and his voice softens. "Albeit an admirable one."

"Yet you still think I would cast you aside just because you didn't have sex with me?" she asks, lowering her brows.

" _Everyone_ wants to have sex with me, and I mean that literally."

"Oh God," she groans as she closes her eyes. "That ego."

"Don't go bringing Dad into it. Actually, yes, bring Dad into it," he amends, a spark suddenly in his dark eyes. "He's the one who created me this way. If you humans find me universally attractive then it's his fault."

"Right. Because 'Dad' is God?"

"Keep up," he chirps.

"Did our conversation last week mean nothing to you?" she snips before he can launch into one of his rants about being the Devil. "Because it meant something to me. Clearly I was mistaken."

With that, she pivots and once more strides towards her gun belt on the bar stool.

"Because you keep _leaving_ ," he stutters behind her.

"I have a life," she replies as she grabs her things. "One that, shockingly, doesn't revolve around you."

He is silent. She has nearly reached the elevator when his strained voice calls out to her. "Then I'm sorry."

Chloe casts him a sidelong glance. He looks for all the world like he really is struggling against something physical blocking his words.

"I'm sorry I'm such a rubbish friend. I'm sorry I didn't have sex with you." He throws his hands up, as if he has quit in his fight against the thing trying to keep his words inside, or maybe it's just that he has let too many slip out. Lucifer sinks back into a sit onto the bed, looking as if all the energy has left his limbs. "I didn't realize… but I should have."

"Realized what?" she asks, not budging from her spot once more by the elevator.

To her surprise, he uses both hands to rub his face then keeps them there. Hunched as he is, he looks thin.

"Lucifer?" she quietly prompts.

"The button is right there in front of you," he replies from behind his hands.

"Do you want me to leave?"

" _You_ want to leave."

"What do you want?"

"I don't know," he says so softly, in such a strained voice that she stiffens. "I can't even think anymore."

Chloe strides over to him and resumes her seat beside him on the bed. When he doesn't react, she reminds herself not to touch him and rests her holster in her lap, resolving to wait until he shows any sign of life. Half a minute passes. Then another. She narrows her eyes, watching his sides to make sure he is still breathing. When another minute passes in silence, Chloe softly clears her throat.

"You have nothing to apologize for. Least of all for not sleeping with me. It was wrong. I was wrong. You were right. You made the right decision. I don't hold it against you at all." She pauses, waiting for a reaction, but he is still hiding behind his hands. "And just because you didn't sleep with one person doesn't somehow mean that you're…" She scans the ceiling, searching for a word. "Unattractive."

"Back to the potato, are we?" he asks from behind his hands.

Chloe immediately smirks. "You _must_ have had relationships before that weren't founded on sex. I'm sure Linda-"

"Dr. Linda?" he gripes, his voice oddly muffled from his palms.

"She told me that you two weren't sleeping together anymore because she found it unethical. But you're still seeing her. That's a relationship."

Lucifer scoffs and finally pulls his hands away, his yellowed skin flushing pink now that the pressure is gone. "Dr. Linda is hardly a stellar example. I _paid_ for my sessions in sex."

"But you're not poor," is the first thing out of Chloe's mouth, even though a flurry of alarm bells are sounding off in her head.

"Money is _boring_. Everyone has money. That wasn't what she wanted."

"Lucifer," Chloe hisses, leaning towards him, as if they are at risk of being overheard. "What you're describing is more than immoral. It's illegal."

He scoffs. "And here I thought I ought to be getting praised for seeking guidance when I've needed it."

"Not by prostituting yourself!"

He jerks his head to her, the energy immediately back in him. She knows she has just ruffled the black feather. "I am most certainly _not_ a prostitute."

"You are having sex with someone in exchange for their services."

" _Was_ ," he corrects, his brows lowering. "And what else was I supposed to do? Wait in line like all the other people? Giving her what she wanted gave me all sorts of advantages. She even met with me after hours."

"Yeah, I'll bet she did," Chloe replies flatly.

"No need to take a tone, Detective, there was nothing underhand about it."

She presses the edge of her palm against her thigh. "I could have her _arrested_."

A line forms between his brows. "But you wouldn't."

"I can't believe she could be this stupid. She's risked losing her business."

"She's risked nothing because nothing underhand was going on," Lucifer replies loudly. "It's not as if I wasn't willing."

"And you wonder why you see yourself the way you do? You wonder why you've completely defined yourself based on your desirability? Come on, Lucifer. No one has to have a psych degree to work that out. She's supposed to be helping you. Not reinforcing… _ugh_!" she finishes clenching her fists.

Lucifer eyes her for several moments as her shoulders rise and fall. The confusion is evident in his voice. "You've become quite worked up over this."

Chloe shakes her head. "Because somehow, you always manage to get the short end of the stick."

"No argument here."

"It's like you've been conditioned to believe that the only things you deserve in life are corrupt in some way. That you're not allowed anything simple or normal or pure."

"What did you say?" he whispers.

Chloe meets his gaze. Though his brows are lowered, his eyes are boring into hers void of anger. Instead, there is something intensely calculating, as if he's doing math. As if he's trying to assess whether or not she is any of those things, or if she is trying to manipulate him like the rest of the world. She rubs her face. The sweat has dried, leaving her skin clammy with makeup and salt.

"Why did you ask for my help?" she softly asks. "Why do you think you're ill?"

Lucifer looks away from her. His expression holds for some time, then his face slowly softens. He rests a hand on the wrinkled cotton of his chest. "Detective," he lowly begins. "What does cancer feel like?"

 _ **Please share your thoughts!**_


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's Note:**_ _Thank you kindly, once again, for your lovely words of encouragement! Since some of you have commented on the prose and emotion, I thought I'd share that you can read my original work, as well, under my pen name K.M. Rice! :)_

 **Anything Brighter**

 **4.**

"Why did you ask for my help?" she softly asks. "Why do you think you're ill?"

Lucifer looks away from her. His expression holds for some time, then his face slowly softens. He rests a hand on the wrinkled cotton of his chest. "Detective," he lowly begins. "What does cancer feel like?"

Chloe blinks and parts her lips to tell him that she doesn't know. That it's different for everyone. That if he thinks he's that seriously ill, he shouldn't just be sitting there telling her about but rather should be doing something.

 _I should be doing something._

Then a panic so hot that it's white sears into her thoughts, rending them until she can't give them direction anymore.

 _Cancer._

She registers the way Lucifer's hand has closed over the center of his chest, latching onto the fabric there, and just how pale his skin appears in contrast with the darkness of his hair.

"You…" The words come out of her shaky jaw before she even registers them. "Why would you ask that?"

Lucifer's only response is to tilt his head far enough so that he is looking at the back of his hand, giving him a double chin and wrinkles and making her realize that when she looks at him as just as man, she sees that his ears are too big and his nose is too long and his shoulders so wide that he would look like a scarecrow even if he put on fifty pounds. He is so far from perfection that she can't fathom how she had only ever seen him as somehow refined and polished to the point of being unseeable. Blinding. She had let him blind her, and in that way, she _was_ like all the others. She saw only the dazzle and none of the man and had tried to capture some of that light for herself that night when she had come to him drunk.

She swears she can feel her own bag of bricks dropping from her chest into her stomach.

"I tried to take," she whispers.

He lifts his chin and meets her gaze. The moment he registers the pain on her face and the shimmer in her eyes, his expression softens even as his body stiffens. The way the worry and weariness strip away the years from his dark orbs makes her throat tighten anew and she has to swallow past the constriction in her throat as she fights off tears.

Chloe shakes her head. "Lucifer, I'm sorry."

"Whatever for?" he hoarsely asks in a rush.

"You're right. I _am_ like all the others," she croaks. "I tried to… to take from you."

"I don't understand," he softly presses. She doesn't realize he has rested his hand over hers until he grips it. To hold it. "Whatever booze you've helped yourself to is on the house, you know that."

Chloe lets out a laugh that somehow cuts through the narrowness of her throat. Cuts through the same way his impish teasing and prodding always manages to lift her spirits, even when she doesn't want to reward such behavior by showing it. But then she sees their linked hands and knows that he is trying to comfort her even though she is in the wrong and that just breaks her laugh into a sob.

"Now, now, Chloe," he cooes, and the sound of her name in his voice is both jarringly alien and welcome. He wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her to his side. "How long has this been hanging over you? At $25 a shot, you and I both know you couldn't afford to pay for half of what you've already drunk."

"Don't try to make this about alcohol," she tries to scold but now the ugly sound has morphed back into a laugh that shakes lose the first of her tears. She wraps her arms around him in return. With her cheek against his chest, she feels as if half of her weight is gone. Vanished into his warmth.

"But that's so much easier than whatever it is you were about to say," he replies.

She closes her eyes, relishing the vibration of his vice in his throat before she realizes she is doing it. "It's not always about what is easy."

"It should be when whatever else it is has made you cry," he insists.

"I know. And I'm sorry I'm such a mess-" she begins, starting to lean away, but he only tightens his hold in response to keep her at his side.

"You and these apologies. Women really do apologize far more often than men and usually when they're not at all at fault."

"Another Feminist tenant," she observes around a shaky breath.

"Coming from a womanizing playboy, I know," he drawls. "But it's hardly manipulation when guests conveniently plant themselves in my bed. It was some time before I even encountered a woman willing to admit that she had a brain and entertain a conversation before having sex. Or man, for that matter. It's a bit demeaning in both directions, actually."

"I know," she enthuses. "That's what I'm trying to say." She forcibly detangles herself to meet his gaze, not bothering to wipe the tears clinging to her lashes. "You've let the way people treat you define you. Like an object. And I participated in that."

He lets out a little chuckle, and though he is smiling, he hasn't yet slipped back into his manic mask. "Don't be ridiculous. You're immune to me."

"Just because I didn't try to jump your bones the first time I saw you doesn't mean I'm immune."

His brows lower somewhat. "What _did_ you want the first time you saw me?"

Chloe shakes her head somewhat, trying to think back to several months ago when her life was somehow less complicated but also far less enriched. "To solve the case. Find the shooter. To bring justice."

"Exactly. Not, 'I've always had a fantasy of sleeping with the Devil.'"

Chloe offers him her trademarked stare, even if it is dampened by her smearing makeup and drying tears. "Is that _really_ what people tell you?"

Lucifer arches a brow, keeping his voice soft in face of her disheveled composition. "I'd venture that we're getting off topic here but I'm not entirely clear on what the topic was to begin with."

She nods then takes a moment to examine her surroundings. The sun is setting, casting long, golden shadows on the balcony. The light outside is an orange hue only achieved from smog. Beauty in something slowly killing them all. Using her fingers, she wipes at the moisture under her eyes. She examines the dark pigment on her fingertips from her makeup as she speaks.

"You've let other people define who you are, Lucifer. I know because I made the same mistake. It took me years to…" She lets out a shaky sigh and fixes him with a clear gaze. "Whether it's coming from your father or your lovers or Linda, don't let other people tell you who you are."

He blinks, forcing a polite smile as he leans back the slightest bit. "I have no issues with my identity, Detective. Humanity has made my role in all of this quite clear."

"That's exactly my point. Humanity - other people. You've let them walk all over you. You've let me do the same. There's just…" She gestures at him somewhat pathetically. "There's something about you that is utterly captivating. When people are around something like that - something that makes them feel elevated - they want a piece of it. They want it to rub off on them. They hope that being connected to you in some way will make them captivating, too. Important."

Lucifer lets out a noncommittal sound. To her surprise, he looks somewhat bored. "It's amazing what a divine aura can do to even the most logical of mankind."

Chloe twists her lips, reminding herself not to counter his point. "Whatever you want to call it, you draw people to you like moths to a flame."

"I've never understood that one," Lucifer interrupts, a line forming between his brows. "I've seen plenty of insects smack themselves into streetlamps and porch lights but never into an actual fire. They do have a sense of self-preservation, you know."

"Lucifer, this is why people don't take you seriously," she insists, shaking her head listlessly. "You're a master of misdirection and-"

"Why, thank you," he chirps with a grin, sitting up straighter.

Chloe lets out a frustrated groan that morphs into words as she continues. "And when you encourage people to see you only as a sex object or an entertainer or a persona, you are letting them simplify you. Make less of you."

The amusement is sliding off of his face and monotone surprise enters his voice. "You think you've done this as well."

She shakes her head. "I _know_ I have. And I couldn't be sorrier for it. But you push people away, Lucifer. You let me in then you keep me at arm's length and sometimes… sometimes it's just simpler to pretend we really are just co-workers. With everything else going on, I fall into the habit of thinking of you as somehow invulnerable when I know you're not. I dumb you down. At first, I thought your cockiness was based on your ego but now I've come to see that it's born from how the world treats you and even though I _knew_ that," she pauses, her throat tight again. She has only chanced one glance at his face and the way his lips are parted and his brows lowered is enough to ensure she doesn't look at him again while she finishes. "I _knew_ that and thought I'd cash in on it. That I could use you like everyone else because I wanted something from you. I was selfish." With a deep breath, she finally steels herself to hold his dark, confused gaze, and hates that she can see the pained twist behind his eyes. "I tried to take from you, Lucifer. So you're right. I am like all the others." Closing her eyes, she shakes her head and mutters, "God, I am so disgusted with myself."

"Detective," he slowly begins.

 _No more 'Chloe.' We're back to formality._ She keeps her eyes shut.

"I honestly can't fathom a word that has just come out of your mouth."

"Of course you can," she insists, opening her eyes and fixing him with a pained expression. "You said it yourself."

"Only because you were walking away and that hurt," he replies somewhat loudly, filling his chest with air and straightening as if puffing out his feathers to look stronger than he was. "It was a rash comment and now I'm regretting ever letting it slip out. This is what I mean when I say I'm ill."

"Lucifer," she counters, "I identified your weakness and tried to exploit it. Like trying to use someone's handicap against them. Thank God it didn't work."

"This is getting Freudian enough without continuously bringing my father into it so can you please stop with that?"

Chloe studies him. The fading light outside has crept along the bed and is inching towards his face. Right now, it is only highlighting one of his ears and cheekbones and the tips of his long lashes. It gives his face angles that she never noticed before because she never allowed herself to actually look. "I mean it, Lucifer," she continues softly. "And I promise to never do it again. I understand if you can't forgive me, but-"

" _Detective_ ," he interrupts emphatically, "if you don't cease with this nonsense immediately I'll have Maze come back in here and throw you out. I've never heard more rubbish in my life, and I have lived a very long time." He hesitates, for with his shoulders rolled back and his spine straight he is at his full height. As he studies her, he starts to relax and she feels his eyes roving her features like the whisper of sunlight. When he speaks again, his voice is hoarsely quiet and he gives his head a little incredulous shake. "You are so good, Chloe Decker. So incredibly _good_ that you are trying to right a wrong that never even occurred."

"You aren't in my head," she chokes out, for his words are too terribly sweet. "You don't know the thoughts I've had."

"Like what?" he asks, shrugging his shoulders that have relaxed. "That you'd like to ravage me like an animal if it weren't for that pesky conscience whispering that there was a sentience to consider attached to that body?"

Chloe feels a faint flush rise up her chest and knows it is reply enough.

He lets out a little huff. "Then rest assured that we are equally guilty in that regard. It does take two, you know. But as you've said before, this is different. And so what of you were selfish? So what if it was bad timing? It means you made a mistake. Literally, _God knows_ , I have. We all have. You can't beat yourself up over it. Apparently it's just a part of being alive."

"That doesn't change the fact that I still did it," she mumbles flatly, hearing so much Trixie in her voice that it startles her.

"And it was as confusing as it was exciting."

She narrows her eyes. "You were so ready to turn your back on me not an hour ago when you realized I was just as capable as everyone else at using you for sex."

"Yes," he agrees, nodding. "An _hour_ ago. And yet here you still are." He lets out a soft sigh. "Proving that whatever this is between us, it's not just sex. It's not just superficial."

"But sometimes I let it be."

"Then let it be when you need it to be. I don't mind. I trust you, Detective. I won't say that you've never taken from me, but I will point out that it was never nothing I wasn't willing to give. And in return you've…" He falters, as if he has literally knotted his tongue. He turns to look out the balcony, causing the orange light to illuminate his face. It pools in his eyes as his pupils shrink, making his irises look impossibly brown. Almost red.

"I've what?" she asks, moving her hand to rest on his wrist without paying it any heed.

He peers down at their touching skin and to her relief, doesn't stiffen at all. Instead, he looks as if all the air has gone out of him as he returns his gaze to hers, half of his face in the light and the other half in the shadows. The division feels symbolic to her. Like she really is seeing him for the first time.

Lucifer's voice is soft. "In return you've given me so much more than I ever thought possible."

"Oh, Lucifer," she whimpers around tears that are suddenly maring her vision. She only has time to register the bewilderment on his face over her reaction before she launches her torso at his in a hug. Her bag of bricks has swung on its own and she knows better than to try to stop it. "I don't want you to die."

He leans back when he is suddenly baring her weight then lets out a soft chuckle as he wraps an arm around her in turn. "Who said anything about dying?"

"If you think you have cancer then you need to be seen right away," Chloe croaks, tightening her arms around him. When she realizes that she can feel his ribs, she worries that he has lost weight from the disease. "There are so many treatments now. So many options. If they catch it early-" She can't finish and doesn't even bother to stifle a sob.

"Oh, hush now," he cooes into her hair, but she can't stop crying because his body is warm and malleable and neither of them are trying to dance around anything for the moment. They're far too tired for that. He wraps an arm around her hip to scoot her closer until she is flush against his side. "I have no intention of going anywhere."

"But you won't have a choice. Neither of my grandparents had a choice, or my dog Buster, or that girl I went to high school with who never even lived to see graduation."

Lucifer was quiet for several moments but she could feel his heart beginning to race. When he spoke, he sounded petulant. "But I don't _want_ to leave."

"We'll take you to Stanford," she resolved, her tears slowing as she forced calm into her voice over feeling his rising panic. "They have the best facilities and the most progressive treatments."

"Okay," he stiffly agreed.

"I'm sorry, but I _really_ hate your family right now," she seethed without releasing her hold on him. "No one should have to go through this without their support."

"Well, I suppose my father supports it somehow," he answered, his voice weakening with his hold on her. "Otherwise it wouldn't be happening."

"It's never something anyone chooses and almost never a thing anyone deserves."

"How terribly true that is," he replies distantly. "Of all the sinners in Hell, the worst seemed to live long lives."

"Only the good die young, my nana used to say."

"I can't go back there," he continues in his detached tone. "I can't go back to the only company I keep being such horrible people. Not when there are so many good ones up here."

"What sort of medical insurance do you have?"

"I haven't needed any. I was invulnerable until I met you. And you won't be there."

"Where?"

"Hell."

"What are your symptoms?" she asks. In the back of her mind is some sort of siren. Like a warning pointing out how ridiculous their conversation has become and how willing she is to accept the madness in her arms. "You don't have a fever so have you had any unusual bleeding or headaches or trouble using words?"

"I can't believe I am dying," he whispers.

"Neither can I," she whines, twisting to peer up at him. She can only clearly see his jaw. His face is bathed in the orange light again, though it is dimmer now, and he is gazing listlessly outside. Though still around her, his arms are nearly limp in complete contrast to the hammering of his heart.

"And here I kept telling myself that I was wrong. That there are no nerve endings in organs so what I was feeling couldn't possibly be a growth. But it would seem now that I was deceiving myself. All of those online diagnoses were right."

"I don't understand."

"It started in my chest the night that Father Frank died. This… heaviness. This emptiness. But it's grown since then."

A furrow forms between Chloe's thick brows as she listens.

"I forget about it when I'm busy or sometimes when I'm with you, as if you chase it away, but it comes back. It always comes back. Even when I think it's gone, it returns. And when it does… It's like I can't think straight. I can't make decisions. Worst of all, I can't feel. I grow so terribly weak inside that I'm forced to just… stop caring. And everything bad seems worse and everything disappointing seems… abysmal. I don't feel like eating or even getting out of bed half the time. My piano gathers dust. Yesterday, Maze offered me some cocaine and I said no. I knew it might make me feel better but I also knew that it would only be temporary and worried that when I came down, I would come down all the deeper."

Chloe wrenches away from him to meet his gaze, keeping a hand on his back. "This started the night Father Frank was killed?"

He eyes latch onto hers, looking as if he has tasted bile. "You know what it is, don't you?"

"Yeah," she quietly agrees. "I do. It _is_ why you've been feeling ill."

He swallows stiffly and nods, as if making a brave show of his effort. "And what is the general prognosis in a situation like mine?"

She waits until she is certain that she has his full attention then gently takes up both of his hands. The gesture of support makes him stiffen. He sets his jaw, unblinking as he waits.

"What you're describing isn't cancer, Lucifer. It's grief."

"Grief?" he repeats, a flinch in his features lowering his brows.

Chloe nods emphatically, trying to keep a smile from her face but failing. Because she is so relieved that he was so terribly wrong that she can't fight back the flush of joy. After a moment of attempted restrain, a deep, ungraceful giggle bumbles out.

Lucifer's brows lower even more and he parts his lips to scold her until he seems to have the same revelation. He blinks once and his entire expression shifts into one of happy shock. "I'm not dying?"

She shakes her head with another soft laugh.

A smile breaks across his face. "I'm not…" He rests his hand over his chest, as if trying to feel for something there. "But it _is_ real."

"I know," she encourages. "It is real and it's horrible and it sucks, but it's what happens when someone we care about dies." She winces, realizing she is using her mom voice, as if explaining emotions to Trixie. "I'm sorry. I'm sure you've grieved before."

"Point of fact, I haven't," he replies, scrunching up his shirt and releasing it. With a triumphant guffaw he throws himself backwards onto the bed. "This is normal?"

"I think you should still talk to someone about it but yeah, it sounds pretty normal."

He lets out a chuckle and she braces her palm on the mattress, peering down at him with a smile.

"It was those health websites that got me worried," he explains around an amused smile.

Chloe smirks. "Never, _ever_ Google symptoms. If you have a cough, it's cancer. An eye twitch, it's cancer. A crick in your neck, it's cancer. If you're _alive_ , it's cancer."

He points up at her, raising his brows. "I only said they got me worried. _You_ were the one who set off all the alarms with your 'I don't want you to die' business."

"Because I _don't_ ," she insists, realizing that she did leap to a conclusion and unintentionally stoke the fires.

He lets out an amused groan. "We'll see if you still hold to that after working yet another case with me."

Though Chloe smirks at the taunt, but she doesn't take the bait. He does look pale and haggard. His curling hair is wayward, he has more stubble than usual, and it looks as if he hasn't changed his clothes in days. Maze had said he had been lounging around. He may not have cancer, but Chloe knew there was something a bit more going on than the grief over a man he knew for all of a few days.

Lucifer let her know that she was scrutinizing him by narrowing his eyes slightly. "What now?"

"I'm just worried," she softly replies.

Lucifer raises his brows as he peers up at her. "About me or about the global economy? Because I would agree that this business with the yen is rather distressing, unless of course you take into account the rise of the coin and-"

He cuts himself off when she lies down beside him, hugging his arm to her chest and resting her cheek on his shoulder. For some time, they lie in silence. The light of the setting sun is now on their legs and Chloe welcomes its fading warmth. Lucifer smells like his bed. Cotton and skin with the lingering hint of a citrus cologne that she could do without. She doubts he's ever smelled bad in his life.

"I _am_ fine," he says hoarsely.

"How do you feel right now?"

She feels him take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Detective, you're not a therapist."

"I'm a friend, Lucifer."

"So was Father Frank."

She shifts to rest her chin on his shoulder, studying his face, but all she can see is the darkness of his lashes. "He really got to you, didn't he? You started off so against him but by the end… you had really bonded."

The muscles of his throat ripple as he swallows. He doesn't have to nod.

"Sometimes cases end badly," she advises. "It's why I try to never get close to the people involved. But sometimes… sometimes you can't help it," she finishes, remembering that he was once a witness in a case.

Lucifer chews on the inside of his lower lip but doesn't reply. She worries she is pushing. That she'll blow the feather away and make him clam up instead of continue to open up. She is shocked when he does both.

He twists his head to peer out the window on the opposite side of the bed, or maybe he's just trying to look and be as far away from her as he can while she's still hugging his arm. His voice is quiet. "Father Frank accepted me for who I was."

Chloe is quiet for a moment, reminding herself that treading lightly doesn't literally mean that she needs to hold her breath. "And what is that?" she asks.

"Lucifer Morningstar. The Devil."

 _ **Please do share your thoughts!**_


	5. Chapter 5

**_Author's note:_** _So, so sorry that it has been this long between chapters. I was initially distracted by writing a screenplay and now am in the midst of volunteering for a presidential campaign until June 7_ _th_ _, but if I get free time between now and then, I'll post more! Thanks to all who read and review!_

 **Anything Brighter**

 **5.**

Chloe can do nothing but watch the rise and fall of Lucifer's chest for some time. His breathing is slow and even but is the only thing about him that is animated. Moving. With the pair of them still lying on his bed and his head twisted away from her, she can't tell what expression he is making. Almost inadvertently, she hugs his arm tighter as she rests her cheekbone against his shoulder.

 _Lucifer Morningstar. The Devil. Father Frank accepted him with a trust and grace that I've never shown. Because Lucifer's not the only one keeping people at arm's length._

Taking in a deep breath, she slowly lets it out. Her next question surprises even her. "Who named you?"

Lucifer takes a moment before he answers and she knows he's biting back an annoyed response. His voice is soft. "My father."

"Is his last name also Morningstar?"

"It sounds Native American, doesn't it?"

"It sounds... "

"What?"

"Fantastical."

Lucifer lets out a soft huff. Chloe reminds herself not to shift in place. Instinctively, she knows that if she lets go of his arm now, she'll never get a piece of him back.

"What was his first name?"

"If this were a century ago or even less, you'd be asking me for his Christian name."

"Fine," she softly agrees. "Then what's his Christian name?"

Lucifer's voice strains. "He doesn't have one."

"Just like you somehow don't have a mother."

He twists his head to peer at her, his dark brows lowered, and the folds of his face seem somehow dearer to her than they did before she came over. He is pale and haggard and utterly exhausted, but also so brilliantly yearning that she could almost hear the whisper in his skin calling out to hers. All she would have to do is whisper back, but she can't. Not while they've both crumpled like a black feather and a poem wadded and torn from a notebook, being nudged across the dusty floor by a breeze. No, she will not let her skin or bones or breath whisper back now. Not when one day her eyes and ears and lips may instead be able to sing to him. May. May. There is just as much chance that one day, his whisper will quiet and life will divide them, but she doesn't want to think about that now. Instead, she focuses on her hope that the black feather of a man at her side might one day be willing to smooth out the wrinkles of her poem.

When Lucifer speaks, she has to remind herself that she had even asked a question.

"He has no name for he has no body. No physicality. No… he is too big for that." Lucifer suddenly lets out a mirthless giggle then gazes upwards. "Oh, you're just loving this, aren't you? Your wayward son attempting to describe your omnipresence?"

"So he is God?" Chloe asks.

"I am not answering that question again," Lucifer flatly replies, his gaze still fixed on nothing above him rather than her.

"Then how did he…" She shrugs her topmost shoulder. "How did he sire you?"

" _Sire_ me?"

"If this mystical, supernatural father of yours doesn't have a body, how did he create a child who most certainly does?" She squeezes his arm for emphasis which directs Lucifer's attention to her again. After glancing over her features he fixes his dark gaze on the way both of her arms are wrapped around his, as if he has only just noticed. Though they are touching, she can see a shadow shift in his eyes as a part of him retreats further into himself, not to be held. Comforted. She can't blame him for that, not when she has done the same dozens of times. Not when she can't believe him the way a complete stranger did.

"A thought," he answers softly.

"A thought?"

"Yes, a thought or… something. An impetus to create. An _urge_ , a cosmic ejaculation. I don't know. I don't understand most of this anymore than you do. It's not as if he and I are on speaking terms."

Chloe nods, torn between continuing her line of questioning with an estranged, absentee father in her crosshairs, or adopting Lucifer's metaphor for the sake of trying to coax that retreating piece of him towards her, but she knows it would be false. "I take it he wasn't very supportive growing up."

Lucifer lets out a guffaw. "As I've told you before, Detective, there _was_ no growing up. I simply existed. And no, for the record, he wasn't. We were mostly his… experiment. He created us then let us run amok amongst ourselves while he was busy with higher tasks. To be honest, it's all a bit hazy. I don't remember much from the void save for the beating of wings and nearly drowning in my emotions. So many emotions. So much to… feel. It took us all ages to sort anything out, and that isn't hyperbole."

"My dad wasn't around much for me, either. I mean, he tried, but… my mom has never had the best taste in men. For a while, I followed in her footsteps, I guess."

"You mean Detective Douche isn't an outlier?"

Chloe lightly pinches his arm in gentle warning but he merely fixes her with his borderline patronizing gaze, telling her how certain he is of his assessment of the other male. "How old were you when you left home?"

"If by that you mean when I fell, then the answer is that I don't know. I've never known how old I was." He pauses, lowering his dark brows and holding up his free hand to examine it. "It has never mattered before. But now… now I actually wonder."

Chloe sits up, releasing his arm and bracing herself on her elbow as she raises her brows. "You seriously expect me to believe that you have no idea how old you are?"

Lucifer twists his head to peer at her. "What do my records say?"

"I'd have to look it up."

"Then how old do I look?"

"Between fifteen and thirty-five, depending on your mood," she answers before she can stop herself.

Lucifer slowly smiles, returning his attention to the skin on his hand as he rotates it above him.

"So, your dad was an absentee hippie zealot who gave you a Biblical name then kicked you out after a disagreement and you've been on your own ever since?" she asks to clarify.

"Minus the hippie part, though I will say that he is the artistic type."

For several moments, Chloe just watches his lax expression as he prods at the veins under his skin on the back of his hand now that both are again free. She tries to imagine another version of him. A man older, harder, greyer. Someone cruel enough to twist their own child into a villain before casting him out. She wonders where the beauty of such a man's son could have come from. "Lucifer, your father named you after the devil. After a character most believe to be the personification of evil."

"After the first star in the morning sky," Lucifer softly replies, lowering his hand.

"He tried to demonize you from birth."

"Oh, trust me, I _earned_ the name. Literally. I was quite the holy terror."

"I don't believe that."

He lets out a loud laugh that is so fake that it's actually painful for her to wait through. When he finishes, she arches a brow. Lucifer cocks his head, peering up into her face with a smugly amused smile. "Go on, then. I can tell you're just aching to lecture me about how _good_ I am."

"You were named after a villain-"

"Scapegoat."

Chloe's ponytail bobs with her pontification as she lists the story of his life. "You were named after a scapegoat, raised by a man who was so strict that he abandoned you when you were young and hasn't spoken to you since, run a club that encourages debauchery and everything else that would make a parent shudder, and are a therapist's whore. You don't see a common link in all of this?"

Lucifer's smug smile has slowly been replaced by a horrible scowl. The petulant expression used to make her tense, worried that the sudden shift in mood meant he would lash out, but she knows better now. Though she cannot deny that he has crossed the line several times with the guilty, he has never lashed out at her, even with unjust words. For that restraint alone, she admires him.

"And what exactly _is_ that link?" he asks sharply.

She slowly shakes her head. The hairs on her arms and neck tickle as several rise, for she knows she is probing dangerously close to a wound. "It's him. He's in everything you do."

"Of _course_ he is. He _made_ me and all of existence."

"No, Lucifer, I mean he's still _controlling_ you even though he's not here. You're letting him, just like you've let other people define your worth. Or maybe you're really letting _him_ define your worth because if you're nothing to the only parent you've ever known, then what are you to anyone else?"

Lucifer holds her gaze for some time, and though she doesn't look away, she is tempted to to check on the square of sunlight that has been migrating through the room. For if she didn't know better, she'd have thought she saw it's orange reflection in his dark orbs. She expects him to snap back at her. To use rudeness to push her away. Instead, he sits up.

"Well that was thoroughly depressing. And here I thought your goal was to cheer me up."

Chloe sits up all the way to be as level with him as she can. "I'm sorry," she mutters as he peers out at the greying balcony. The sun is gone and she isn't certain what she could've seen in his eyes. "It's just… if you can't see it, sometimes it's helpful for someone else to point it out for you."

"Like I have countless times with Detective Douche?"

"This is different. I know Dan has flaws."

"You really think I don't know all of that about Dear Old Dad?" he asks with a measure of calm that he is quickly losing as he stands up. "Or do you honestly believe you possess a vastly superior intellect capable of deducing what should be obvious?" To Chloe's surprise, he tugs off his wrinkled shirt and pivots to turn his scarred back to her. "Do you truly think that a man who cuts off a piece of his own body just to spite his father isn't aware that he has issues with him? Don't you think I've done everything within my power to cut him off?"

A line forms between her brows as she rises. She hates looking at his scars yet she can't take her eyes off of them, and the longer she absorbs their misshapen, smoothed ridges, the more she realizes that she is looking at the echo of an agony she can only just grasp and has no business prodding. "Lucifer," she lowly begins around a tightness in her throat. "Why would you do that to yourself?"

"Because I didn't want them anymore," he replies, pivoting back around to face her, and she can't help but notice that his stomach is tucked in, as if he hasn't eaten in some time. "Because they were nothing but a reminder of his fallen hopes for me. Because he-"

Lucifer stops, and Chloe doesn't know if he's hesitating because of the wrench twisting her insides, making her hold her breath, or because he felt his own innards twisting.

"Because he made me wrong," he softly finishes.

Chloe shakes her head, feeling the twist between them too keenly to even try to fight off her sympathy pains in her throat. "You weren't made wrong, Lucifer. That's the point. That asshole has just made you think that you are."

"No," Lucifer quietly insists, donning his shirt once more. "No, I _was_. I was made wrong both outside and in. None of my brothers or sisters had trouble. None of them had audacious thoughts. None of them wanted… wanted to choose."

"Choose what?" Chloe asks, shaking her head just enough to loosen the tightness in her throat.

Lucifer's shoulders slump. When he doesn't answer, she clears her throat, forcing a strength into her voice that she doesn't feel because she knows there is no going back ever again. That all the preening and pageantry in the world won't repair him in her eyes. That a calico cat and a whispered question were just the beginning of the spiderweb fractures that are now splintering across her heart.

"Choose what?" she repeats, louder.

"I don't know." Lucifer crosses back over to her, stiffly sitting down. "Chloe, I don't know."

"You're a liar," she states, peering at a tuft of lint on her legging-covered knee, once more fighting off the familiar throb in her throat as it threatens to return. "You don't owe me anything, but you couldn't possibly reach behind you. Someone did that to you."

"You're right," he softly agrees. "I couldn't reach properly. Maze did most of it." He tries a small smile that doesn't reach his eyes and dims the moment his look into hers.

"Did it hurt?"

"It was the most beautiful agony I'd ever felt since falling."

"God," she gasps, shaking her head and looking away from him. She is aware that his eyes never leave her face. That thoughts are tumbling all over each other in his mind. She can practically feel their reverberations as they bounce against his skull and hum in his pores. But she won't look. She can't look because his words and body and being are against everything rational and real in her mind. Because he is barer beside her than ever before.

"But why am I wasting my breath," he softly coos, "when we both know you don't believe a word I say?"

"I believe a version of it," she replies, closing her eyes as her words fall lamely on her own ears.

"Because I'm not enough for you?"

Chloe opens her eyes. "What?"

"You profess to be my friend, Chloe Decker, but a friend, a true friend like Father Frank was would believe my words because it was I who said them."

"Lucifer," she tries, her eyes back on the tuft of lint. "That is asking so, so much."

"Actually, it's quite simple."

"I believe that _you_ believe your story."

Lucifer doesn't respond. She can't even hear him breathing. She swallows and it sounds so gratingly loud to her ears that she feels a flush rise in her skin. Closing her eyes, she takes a deep breath and holds it in her lungs before peering at the ban beside her.

He is staring out the window at the grey cityscape, and she immediately loses all of the air saved in her lungs. She can only see a portion of his face, for which she is thankful, because she doesn't think she could survive seeing his whole visage. His features are pale and relaxed, listless. But his eyes seem to have grown all the darker with a sadness so profound that she really does believe there is something dark and hollow growing within him. In fact, she's certain she's gazing right at it.

When she was a little girl, she loved to collect feathers and use them in her crafts. Hair clips, dream catchers, tassels on belts. When the vanes of the feathers were bent and crumpled, she would use her thumb and fingers to smooth them back out again until the vanes were once more hooked to each other and the feather was smooth. She was so good at it that she never worried about being delicate with her handcrafted treasures. Not until one evening, when dashing to answer the phone, she stepped on her barrette. The hairclip itself was fine, but she had snapped the center of the feather. The sturdy part. The spine. The thing that was supposed to always stay straight. No amount of delicate preening with her fingers or hot glue could make it look the same ever again because she had accidentally broken it.

Chloe knew she had just snapped the spine of a black feather.

"Lucifer," she whispers. Her throat is tight again, and her eyes are burning, but no tears come. Not even when she wants them to.

"Perhaps you're right," he says so softly that it takes her a moment to decipher his words. "Perhaps you're _all_ right. How could anything I just said be true?" He pauses, his gaze sliding down to his hands lightly clasped in his lap. "Am I losing my truth or did I just never have it?"

She lays her hand on his shoulder and can feel the press of his bone against her palm. "You're not alone. You're never alone."

His lips twist in a painful wrench as he smirks. "I am only ever alone, Detective."

"No, you're not," she insists, sliding her hand over the wrinkled shirt on his back. Something inside of her has chilled at the sight of his sorrow and she worries it will never thaw. Never thaw because it was her who chilled it. "You have me."

"That's just the thing," he whispers back. She can feel his spine sag as he hunches the slightest bit, his muscles tensing. "I don't have you at all."

Chloe parts her lips but all that comes out is a puff of air. A puff of air because her thoughts are all setting each other on fire, trying to melt the ice around the frozen part of her but they can't. Anything she says to try to comfort him will be a lie and the pair of them have lived in half truths for so terribly long.

She has just decided to leave before she swings her bag of bricks and causes further damage when two things happen. One is wholly mundane but the other is wholly remarkable.

Maze bursts through the elevator doors, snapping something that sounds like "If one more drag queen-" which startles both Chloe and Lucifer in their mournful quietness that each jerk in place. Chloe sucks in a surprised gasp and Lucifer does the same. Only his body's reaction is anything but the same.

Chloe stares at her hand splayed over one of his shoulder blades with burning eyes. Lucifer takes several breaths to calm himself as Maze continues on her rant, striding over. But it isn't Maze he is listening to. He stiffly twists his neck, peering at Chloe with lips parted in silent question. His eyes are tense and frightened and excited and she knows that, at that moment, they look the same as hers. She stiffly removes her hand and Lucifer won't blink as he absorbs every minutiae of her reaction. For when Lucifer had startled, she had felt something beneath his corded scars move involuntarily. Something other than his shoulder blade. Something like the muscle that would've once powered a wing.

 ** _Please share your thoughts!_**


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's Note:**_ _Firstly, thank you very much for the support through the favs, follows, and most importantly, the reviews! I love to hear your thoughts. Secondly, my apologies for not having the time to write and post sooner. As a reward for your patience, here is an extra long chapter! Also, feel free to consider this story AU by now._

 **Anything Brighter**

 **6.**

Chloe has been staring at her reflection in the bathroom mirror for so long that her eyes are out of focus. She blurrily watches a trickle of sweat and water slide down her nose. Blinking, the droplet is suddenly clear. She only dimly realizes that it was tickling her skin and that she had the instinct to wipe it away. Instinct.

She wrenches the handle on the faucet and cups her hands beneath the flow of water, splashing the cool liquid on her face as if she could wash away the memory burning her brain. The feel of muscles that had no right to exist reacting on instinct. The vestige of a wing. Vestige…

 _No, not vestige. A vestige is something that once existed. This never existed. People never used to have wings. Humans don't have wings. Lucifer is a human… human..._

Chloe had replayed the moment dozens of times in her mind on the drive home, while cooking dinner, in the shower. Every time she would convince herself that she hadn't really felt anything at all, she knew she was really just giving her thoughts a momentary break. An interlude of comfort. A necessary escape from the exhaustion of her mind twisting in on itself again and again like a dying snake. Like playing house, she could convince herself that all was still straightforward. That the here and now were what mattered. That Lucifer was not really…

 _Not human?_

With a groan, she turns off the faucet and untucks part of the towel around her torso to dry her face. Her legs are aching from her run on the treadmill that afternoon, though it seems like ages ago to Chloe and she is tired in ways that she didn't even think possible. Like her very edges are stretching.

Padding into her bedroom, she dons her baggy T-shirt and pajama bottoms then flops onto her bed. Her phone is blinking from new messages but she is afraid to look at them because one is likely from Lucifer and she can't handle him chiseling more cracks into her reality. Not when she feels like she is dangling from the end of a thin thread, spinning wildly from each thought, frightened that a new one might cut her free completely.

"How can this be my life?" she groans to the ceiling.

 _Wings. Fucking wings._

When her phone buzzes with yet another new text, she sighs and reaches for it. To her disappointment and relief, none of the texts are from Lucifer. Instead, she has one from her mother who is still trying to set up a time to take Trixie to Disneyland, and several from Dan. Ignoring her ex, Chloe immediately replies to her mother, telling her that Trixie is ready whenever grandma is ready, because even the walls of her room feel like too much right now, let alone motherhood. Dan is repeatedly asking her if she is all right and she realizes she missed a text from him that afternoon while she was with Lucifer.

 _Lucifer._

Though she sends him a reply, she wouldn't be able to repeat what she had just sent if questioned, because it left her head the moment she wrote it. All she can think about is the terrible sadness in Lucifer's eyes when she realized she had accidentally broken the spine of a black feather. Of the exhaustion in his entire being. Of the desperation for something he couldn't even name. Of the likelihood that he was, in fact, telling her the truth all along.

"A God damned fallen angel."

Then she laughs. Slowly at first, but it builds. It builds because he couldn't possibly be ancient. He is the most childish adult she knows. She laughs because he couldn't possibly be anything other than human when his flesh is just as real as hers. She laughs because she saw him throw a man without touching him, make a murderer lose his mind, and has slipped away while she blinked one too many times. She laughs because it was always there on the fringes of her mind, like the shadows cast by sunlight hitting a pool of water; dancing, dancing, always dancing in impossible, shifting light shapes. She laughs because there is nothing else to do.

* * *

Lucifer's walls are reverberating from the bass downstairs as Lux thrives even as he withers. The look in Chloe's eyes when she felt what should have been his wings moving is branded into his memory. She was startled. Excited. And afraid.

 _I wanted this. Didn't I want this?_

He has lost track of just how many times he has tried to explain himself to the woman. How many times he has told her God's honest truth. Literally. He thought that once she understood, he would somehow feel… better. As if it would make his existence on the earthly realm more just. More normal. Instead, he had never felt more uncomfortable.

Chloe hadn't said a word. She'd just up and left, leaving both him and Maze watching her pound the elevator button and disappear in silence. It was the silence that was freezing him over.

Running a hand along his chilled arm, Lucifer peers out at the lights of Los Angeles below him. He doesn't know how he has gotten to this window nor why he has decided to take in the view. All he knows is that there are hundreds of people both within and without his building who would either smother or shriek at him depending upon his mood. Hundreds of mortals who all assumed he was one of them. But he didn't care for their thoughts. Their opinions. Their dreams. There was only one person in the world whose mind he wanted to understand, and that person had all but run away from him.

"I've ruined everything, haven't I?" he asks the night with a soft chuckle. As an afterthought, he casts his gaze upwards to peer at the sky, as if his father might offer some sign or insight. The heavens are quiet as usual. Clouds have rolled in, blocking out the few faint stars he can usually see.

With a sigh, Lucifer pads over to his bed and crawls under his covers. The familiar black weight is back in his chest. He hoped Chloe had chased it away for some time with her visit, but her departure had only made its weight increase. For a moment, he exhales and doesn't take another breath, letting the bass of the music below thrum with his pulse. Without air in his lungs, he expects the thing inside to crush him. Instead, it feels lighter. When he lets in a full breath he is so weighted down that he is sure he can never rise again.

Not that he wants to.

Chloe had asked him what he wanted. He couldn't answer. But now he knows what he doesn't want. He doesn't want to ever have another pair of eyes look at him again. He is so sore, and they all hurt too much.

* * *

Chloe can't concentrate. She has been staring at her monitor for some time, trying to remember the start of an email address to enter. She only has to remember the start because the program will prompt her and fill in the rest once it's recognized. Her mind doesn't even have to memorize it. That's how streamlined she is used to living. But now there are feathers everywhere in her thoughts and her head hurts and she can't even remember the start of the DA administrator's email.

Giving up, she walks away from her desk, grabbing her half-full cup of coffee. Dan watches her stride towards the machine against the wall. Chloe pours out her cold drink and decides on tea instead. Tea because it's something different and will take a few moments to prepare and in those few moments she can hide from the crushing weight of the feathers.

"Hey," a soft voice sounds behind her.

She is filling her cup with hot water and startles so much that the scalding liquid splashes onto her hand.

"Jesus," she gasps. Despite the heat, the name makes the hair on her arms and neck stand on end.

"I thought you saw me," Dan explains in a hushed rush, grabbing a wad of napkins for her.

"Why would I have seen you?"

"You looked right at me when you walked by."

"I did?"

Dan tries a smile that fades when Chloe's only response is to take the napkins and mop up the spilled water on her arm and thigh.

"You didn't sleep much last night, did you?" he asks. "Was it Trixie?"

"Trixie's fine," she mutters.

"Are you?"

Chloe sighs and stops trying to dry off her pantsuit. She meets Dan's pale, concerned gaze. "What do you want, Dan?"

He blinks, as if she has insulted him. "Where is this coming from?"

"Where is _what_ coming from?" she asks as she peers at the three different options for tea.

Dan sighs through his nose, waits the appropriate amount of time for her to respond, but when all Chloe does is open a packet of Earl Grey without looking at him, he lets his shoulders slump. "So Trixie's going to be gone this weekend?"

"They've been trying to plan this trip for weeks."

"I just would've liked to have been asked, is all."

"What?" Chloe peers up at him as she dunks her tea bag. "You're going to ban your kid from going to Disneyland?"

Dan runs his lower lip along his teeth, peering at her through narrowed eyes for a moment. When he speaks, his voice is still hushed. "You know what? I don't know what is wrong with you, but I'm not impressed, Chloe."

With that, he steps away from the coffee-making table. Chloe lets out a snort. She can't help it. Having Dan peeved at her is the most normal thing in her life right now.

* * *

The following day, her mind is quieter. She hides in her routines. She starts the laundry, makes Trixie's lunch, takes her to school, then goes to work. She can remember the email of the DA's administrator and takes great pride in clearing out her inbox. She feels so productive that she even smiles at Dan when he passes by her desk.

The stack of paperwork tucked away in a drawer has never looked so good and she dives into it with a relish for the black ink on the white pages and the boxes to tick and the handful of lines provided for her to write her answers and the limitations. Limitations. Borders. Edges. Everything is clear and solid and ordered.

By the time she drives home, Trixie has left with grandma, it is dark and raining and Chloe doesn't feel an ounce of guilt over the crappy Chinese food and tub of ice cream she has bought for dinner. Instead, she feels excited. Light. Because time and space and thoughts are now between her and the impossibility.

She blasts music and dances and sings in the shower. She puts on her softest pair of pajamas and hunts for something to watch on TV while she eats. Buried in three blankets and hugging one of Trixie's stuffed cats, Chloe feasts on her malnutritious, processed meal. The wind surges, pelting the window with rain and she delights in her cozy nest.

Then her phone chimes. She checks the time. It's past nine.

Lunging to grab it off of the coffee table, she is about to answer when she notices who is calling: Lucifer. She bites her lip, her thumb hovering over the green icon. She nearly doesn't swipe it because she was finally feeling calm and sane and peaceful in a way that only ever happens after a trauma. Then her thoughts stop working and her body reacts on its own. She answers the call.

"Yeah."

She furrows her brow at the static on the other end. It sounds as if something is rubbing against the mic and she wonders if he even meant to call her or if this was a butt dial.

"Lucifer?"

"Sorry, having some trouble hearing you," he replies, his voice a bit strained.

Chloe stiffens. "What's going on?"

"Nothing at all, of course," he cooes. "Only I've been waiting for you to ring and haven't had so much of a _peep_ ever since the whole chicken incident."

"Chicken?" she repeats, uncoiling the blankets.

"Wings, and all that."

"Right. Well, now isn't the best time."

The interference starts up again, making the line deepen between Chloe's brows.

"Really? That's a shame. And I came all this way."

"Lucifer, where are you? And what is that noise?"

"Outside your house and the rain."

Chloe's chin juts out as her eyes widen. Switching off the phone, she scrambles off the couch and hurries over to the door. Unlocking it, she wrenches it open, only to wince at the sudden flurry of raindrops against her face as a gust of wind moans past.

Lucifer is standing in the middle of her walkway, soaked to the bone, looking more modern London than ever before wearing a pair of tennis shoes and a navy blue track suit. He has shaved since she last saw him, but his jawline is about the only part of him that looks like his old, immaculately composed self.

"Hello," he chirps with a grin as he tucks his phone back into his pocket.

"What the hell are you doing?" Chloe snaps.

" _Manners_ , Detective," he lightly scolds.

Chloe steps back, opening the door further in a silent invitation. When he hesitates, she cocks her head and fixes him with a patronizing glare. "You can come in."

"Please," he huffs. "I'm not Dracula. I don't _need_ an invitation."

"You've proven that by barging in in the past."

"I hardly barged," Lucifer protests as he steps inside leaving a wet path. "In fact, I've never barged in my life. There isn't enough of me to _barge_ anywhere."

Chloe keeps her distance, appraising him with her arms folded over her chest as he closes the door and stands there, dripping, in her entryway. Her stance is half over the oddity of the situation and half because she isn't wearing a bra and suddenly got quite cold. Her mother often teased that the streak of decency that seemed completely absent in herself had skipped a generation and found a home in Chloe, despite the _Hot Tub High School_ incident. "Did you seriously walk here?" she asks.

Lucifer appraises her for a moment and in the brief flash of his brown eyes in ambient light she can see that they are dull and hollow and not at all the dancing, mischievous sprites she is used to greeting her, despite his cheery voice and banter.

"Of course not," he replies as he sets his wet phone on the table. "I ran."

Her brows shoot up, wrinkling her forehead. "Ran?"

"Is it really so shocking?" he drawls, sounding bored as he unzips his hoodie.

"It is, actually. I've never seen you run in my life."

"Well I couldn't exactly fly, could I?"

The cold let in when she welcomed the devil into her home seems to intensify around Chloe at the memory of his scars and she softly clears her throat, looking away and longingly back at her blanket nest of willful ignorance.

"Besides," he continues, in an attempt to ignore her reaction as obvious as straddling a crevice, "I know you told me to never look anything up online, but many doctors claim that exercise helps clear one's head."

"Yeah," she softly replies, her eyes still on the blankets and Trixie's stuffed cat. "It does." Chloe returns her attention to Lucifer as he struggles out of the sodden jacket that is sticking to his arms. The black T-shirt he has on underneath is nearly completely soaked as well. "You live at least six miles from me."

"Seven, actually."

"You _ran_ seven miles?"

Lucifer arches a brow. "Believe you me, Detective, I was just as shocked as you are, but I really _had_ to get out of that room and away from all of that bloody noise downstairs."

"You love Lux."

Lucifer's only response is to attempt to drape his wet garment on the back of one the chairs.

"Here." Chloe steps over and grabs it. "I'll put it in the dryer. In fact," she pauses to glance him over, "go take a shower. You must be freezing. I can find you some clothes." She starts for the hallway when an odd thought strikes her, making her wince and pivot to face him once more. "Do you even get cold?"

Lucifer's face is pale and drawn as he studies her, rainwater trickling down his temples. "Yes, Detective," he softly replies, and the tension in his voice and eyes puts a sharp feeling in her stomach, letting her know that she has misstepped, but she is too exhausted to care. "I get quite cold."

Chloe nods pensively for a moment then resumes her trek down the hall. For some time, Lucifer doesn't budge from his spot by the doorway where he is quickly making a puddle. His gaze drifts down to the steady dripping at his feet and he realizes that he is making a mess. That he is a mess. That he is imposing not only on Chloe, but on all of humanity. That he is just a curiosity to her, like a freak in a sideshow. That he would have been better off to have let himself sink into the lie that he was delusional, after all, and that he really was a human pretending to be the devil.

The detective comes back into the room so quickly and quietly that she catches Lucifer with his hand on the doorknob. He hastily tucks it behind his back, as if he wasn't just about to leave without a word, and does his best to slip into a mask of pleasant nonchalance. Chloe decides that it's easier to play dumb and pretend that she didn't notice. Instead, she hands him a clean towel and jerks her head down the hallway.

"First right."

Lucifer stiffly nods with a false little smile then steps past her.

"That's it?" she calls after him as he closes the bathroom door, then imitates a posh accent. "No, 'won't you join me, Detective'?"

"Oh, I almost forgot," he chirps, popping his head back out to grin at her. "Won't you join me, Detective?"

Chloe smirks. "Put your stuff in the laundry basket. I'll dry it when you're out."

Later, Chloe has fixed two cups of tea and put a tank top on underneath her pajama top because she really can't deal with a bra on top of everything else. The closest she has come to drying the puddle Lucifer made was to toss yesterday's newspaper onto it. She trails a finger over the doorknob, reminding herself that he is no longer the same man who used to drive her crazy and whom she delighted in torturing in return. Somehow, she had taken that from him. Or maybe he had given it up on his own. Either way, carelessness on her part had nearly chased him back out into the dark. As she returns into the kitchen to check on the tea, she reminds herself of just how gentle of a gust it takes to blow over a broken black feather.

"Well," Lucifer announces as he exits the bathroom, looking even taller than normal in Dan's gym shorts and black sleepshirt that was always two sizes too big. "If my mobile hasn't died yet I think it's time for me to call a cab. Though I shudder at the thought of being seen in Fruit of the Loom." He wrinkles his nose slightly as he plucks at his shirt collar. "I ought to do the poor man a favor and replace this rag with a stack of-"

"You just got here," Chloe cuts him off, adding a splash of milk to each teacup in the kitchen.

"And it's quite clear that this was a mistake."

For a moment, she lets her shoulders slump as she studies the white swirling in the depths of the dark liquid.

 _You stepped on this damn feather. You have to fix it._

Chloe pretends that she doesn't know that no amount of tape or glue can make a broken feather as good as it was intended to be by nature.

She steps out of the kitchen, carrying the two mugs and peering at her guest with narrowed eyes. His hair is still damp and is sticking out in clumps every which way, accentuating his awkward body language as he hugs himself in the middle of the room. She decides to play dumb. "I thought you needed a break from your place."

"I did."

"So you ran seven miles in the rain just to knock on my door and use my shower?" she asks, coming to a halt a few feet from him.

Lucifer straightens to his full height with a haughty smirk. "Got to use your same soap, didn't I? Now I even smell like Chloe." He sniffs his arm. "Is that honey?"

Her only response is to shove the mug into his hands and step past him, returning to her nest on the couch. "Here," she mutters. "Take a blanket."

When Lucifer doesn't budge, she peers at him over her shoulder.

"I have about five million. You can have one."

"Five million and one, more like," he replies, cautiously stepping over and taking a seat on the opposite couch. Chloe ignores the stiff warning of his body language that she has grown all too used to and lets her bag of bricks swing, compelling her to stomp over and shove one of Trixie's old comforters onto his shoulders. Lucifer flinches, as if he half expected her to hit him, but Chloe continues tucking the blanket around him anyway then returns to her couch.

"It _is_ honey," she clarifies. "And almond."

"Thank you," he softly offers.

"I figure it's a bit warmer where you come from."

"A touch."

Chloe sinks down into her remaining blankets, curling her legs up to her chest and balancing her cup of tea on her kneecaps. She watches Lucifer through the steam, allowing it to distort his image, willing it to reveal him as something other than a man as he delicately sips his tea then decides it is too hot and sets it on the coffee table. But he is still only Lucifer. Still her black feather. Broken or not.

My _black feather?_

"So what do we do now?" she asks, half out of the need to strike up conversation but also out of the wayward desire to cover up her thought, as if she had said it aloud on accident.

"I'm assuming sex is off the table," Lucifer replies as he slides his mug onto a coaster upon noticing the stack. "Unless, of course, you enjoy doing it _on_ the table."

"How can you do that?" she snaps, making his dark eyes latch onto hers. "How can you just sit there and act so… _normal_?"

"It doesn't have to be vanilla. We can get as kinky as you like," he presses with a small smile. "Except no dildos. That's one of my only rules."

"I don't even want to know," she mutters, her bangs falling into her eyes as she shakes her head.

"Trust me, you don't," he replies, sinking back against the cushions and pulling the pink comforter tighter around his torso. "Imagine waking up to one of those being-"

" _Lucifer_ ," she hisses, forcefully cutting him off. He swallows somewhat stiffly and she notices for the first time just how locked his jaw is. "I don't know how to move past this."

"Believe me, I didn't know how to _move_ for some time, either."

Chloe stoically ignores him and the brevity of his smug look betrays just how weak his defense really is. Her eyes blaze into his and he can't hold her gaze. Blinking, he refocuses on the fabric surrounding him. "The spawn really has been brainwashed, hasn't she? Pink ponies. _Pink_."

"Lots of little girls like pink."

" _Pink."_

"Better than princesses."

"Some princesses have an ounce of power."

"Most just need to be rescued."

"I doubt very much that any woman in your family line has _ever_ needed rescuing," he quips with a light chuckle.

Chloe shifts her mug, studying the fine lines in the glaze from too many washes on the bottom shelf of the dishwasher. "I did, once."

"Lies."

"I was shot. Twice. I would've been killed." She lifts her gaze to meet his. Lucifer seems to have shrunk beneath the blanket. "I watched you get shot that day, too. Several times. And he was screaming. Screaming so... horribly. You saved my life. I thought I must've just been confused over what I saw but… now I…" She shakes her head, her hair again falling into her face. "Now I know that I have to accept it. All of it."

"Accept is a mighty big word," he breathes. "Don't take on more than you can bear."

Chloe meets his gaze again and is surprised to find his focused elsewhere. Listless.

"I'm sorry," she softly offers. "I'm sorry it took me so long but this thing… this is such a tremendously, huge, _big_ thing."

"I know that," he whispers without moving.

"It goes against everything I've grown to rely upon. Because if you really are who you say you are - _what_ you say you are - then what else is true? Aliens? Magic? God?"

"A very, very big thing," he agrees so softly that she almost can't hear him. Then he blinks and has a faint spark of life in him again. "If I still had my wings, I would've shown you them ages ago and we would be well past all this by now."

Chloe minutely shakes her head. "I don't know. I don't know if there _is_ any moving past this."

"I never meant to frighten you. That was always the last thing I wanted. It's why I never..."

"You haven't."

He lifts his head and meets her gaze with a glimmer of hopefulness that makes him look endearingly familiar again to her for the first time all night.

"Lucifer," she begins calmly, "if you're really an angel then… you're no more to blame than I am. You didn't create anything. You were _created_. Like me. Like us. Like all of us. You had no say in your existence any more than we do."

"But I _tried_ ," he croaks. "I _wanted_ a say."

Chloe narrows her eyes as she stiffly nods. "And your father struck you down."

Lucifer parts his lips but any reply is suddenly swallowed by the weight of her eyes upon him and he can't hold her gaze. He focuses instead on the steam rising from his mug on the table before him. He twists his jaw, as if he wants to speak ill of the deity but doesn't dare. Chloe doesn't know if he's holding back for his own sake or for hers.

"Have you ever seen Him?" Chloe asks. "Have you ever seen your father?"

"He isn't," Lucifer starts, then comes to a halt.

Though Chloe waits, he doesn't begin again. She keeps her voice soft as she peers at him. "He isn't what?"

"He isn't a thing to be seen," Lucifer continues.

"Then how do you know he's real?"

"The same way you know the wind is real, or air, or gravity. Because he is _felt_. At least, he was, once." Lucifer lifts his head and hesitantly meets her eyes. She could have thought that he was breathing frost for how delicately he spoke. "There was a time that he was everywhere. But then there _was_ time, and he was nowhere. Not for any of _us_."

"So… he doesn't exist anymore?"

Lucifer shakes his head. "He is just… distant. To me, at least. Though I have greatly disappointed him. He likely takes pains to keep us as far apart as possible." He narrows his eyes, his unusually dark lashes making them almost disappear as he scrutinizes her. "I _have_ told you all of this before, Detective."

"I know," she agrees with a nod, then clears her throat. "It's just… helpful to hear it all again in context."

"I _gave_ you context," he replies, his voice louder. "You simply didn't want to believe it."

To Lucifer's surprise, Chloe nods her head again, letting her eyes drift down to her knees. "Yeah," she softly agrees. "Yeah… you have… every right to be angry with me. You must've told me a hundred times," she pauses with a short, mirthless laugh before forcing herself to meet his gaze. The way he is paying such close attention that he isn't breathing makes her eyes and throat ache. "But I didn't believe you. I'm your friend... and I didn't believe you."

The sound of the rain in the gutter has faded away. She can no longer feel the warmth coming from the mug on her knees. There might as well not be walls at all. The only thing that exists for either of the people in the room is each other's eyes.

Lucifer is the first to blink and avert his gaze. "Chloe-"

"No, I mean it. I broke your trust. And I'm so sorry for it."

His lips twist in a smile, as if brought on by a thought she waits for him to share, but he doesn't even lift his head and the smile is only a fleeting thing. When it's gone, he gazes listlessly at the floor.

"Listen, I don't expect you to forgive me or even to-" Chloe begins but he cuts her off.

"Do you mean that?" he asks, peering up at her from eyes that look hooded with his head low.

She blinks in surprise, her lips parted to form an answer that doesn't want to come out right away. After a moment, she nods as emphatically as she can, her eyes wide. "Absolutely. Lucifer, all the signs were there. It was just easier for me to-"

"Not the devil part," he corrects with a little wave of his hand as he straightens, his attention once more focused on her. "The other part."

Though Chloe studies him for the length of several heartbeats, he doesn't offer any further clarity. "What… other part?"

Lucifer leans back against the cushions, cocking his head, his voice light once more. "Why, the friend part, of course. Is that really how you think of me? As your friend?"

And there it is. A hint of the old twinkle in his eyes. Chloe is so excited to see it that she actually huffs out a puff of laughter. "Of course, you moron. What else would you be?"

"Oh, I don't know. Colleague. Co-worker. Pain in the ass?"

Chloe smirks. "More like all of the above. Extra on the ass."

"Usually is," he replies around a grin.

Her smile lingers as she studies him, reveling in the way the happiness she had just gifted to him seems to trickle across his features, warming them like a light from within.

"You're a good friend. You always have been," she adds softly. "Which makes me all the more ashamed."

Lucifer tutts, tugging the pink comforter tighter around his shoulders. "None of that, now. _Shame_ has no place even _near_ you."

"There's a lot in my life that I'm ashamed of."

"Like what?" he asks. " _Hot Tub High School_?"

Chloe shakes her head as she mutters, "You're never going to let me live that one down, are you?"

Lucifer chuckles. "Not likely. Else who would put the _ass_ in ass?"

She snorts and the noise makes both of them laugh.

"Honestly, Chloe," he says, and her skin tingles a little at the sound of her name. "What could you possibly have to be ashamed over?"

She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, narrowing her eyes. " _Hot Tub High School_ is definitely on that list, but also... Fighting with my mom. With Dan. Overdue library books."

He rolls his eyes and thumps his head back. "All so terribly _boring_."

"Fights don't feel boring when you're _in_ them."

"No, but they're all so incredibly human."

"Says the man who tried to take on God."

Lucifer levels his gaze at her, his expression unreadable for a moment before he cracks a small smile and lets out a soft grunt of agreement. "I suppose I have set the bar somewhat high, haven't I?"

"Uh, ya think?" tumbles out of her mouth, tripping on her tongue.

His smile is easy as he leans forward to snag his mug and take a tentative sip of the cooling tea. Chloe watches him. The way he feels for steam on his nose, judges the temperature of the ceramic, and gently tilts the cup in the span of a second is so normal that she finds it impossible to see him as anything other than a mortal man.

"What's it like?" she softly asks.

"Black with a hint of orange. And is that cinammon?"

Chloe ignores his assessment of the tea. "Being among… _us_. Humans?"

"It's delightful," he replies so quickly that she isn't satisfied.

"Even when we disappoint you?"

"You never disappoint _me_ , except of course, when you're boring." He pauses to swallow and set his mug down. "But no, no, you're absolutely fascinating, aren't you? My father gave you independent minds and yet the vast majority of your kind seek to hide them."

"Angels don't have independent minds?"

"Heavens, no," he replies around a chuckle. "Pardon the pun. I was the only one of my brothers and sisters to even dare _question_. The rest are quite content to carry out Dad's will."

"But you weren't? Content?"

Lucifer blinks and tilts his chin in a mannerism that she knows means a thought has just occurred to him. "You know, I wouldn't ever say that I was."

"Why do you think that is?"

"We were meant to be kept separate, the angels and the humans. But your lot was far more exciting than all those winged do-gooders. They've never had a spark of ingenuity in their lives. The most excited they ever get is over the music of the spinning of the spheres. Sorry, _planets_. But that just wasn't enough for me. Not when you had clothing and fire and-"

She tilts her head to the side. "And?"

"And… each other."

Chloe tries to recall the scant details he has provided about his early days. She knows better than to label it has his childhood. "You weren't close with your siblings?"

"As much as I could be." His gaze once more becomes somewhat relaxed, focused elsewhere. She wonders if he is remembering Heaven. Another state of being. Angels. "But we're different, you see. And _I_ am different. Over time they started to leave me to my own devices rather than… bridge the gap. Took too much effort to relate to poor brother Samael. They couldn't understand my desire to experience the rain or laughter."

"I think you've experienced enough rain tonight to satisfy you."

Lucifer smirks. "I grew restless. I tried to kneel like the others but… it wasn't in my nature. When I was cast out… the others were all so terribly angry with me. They claimed I was father's favorite and that I had broken all of their hearts. They couldn't understand what would drive me to do such a thing." A line forms between his brows and he blinks, his eyes refocusing on her face. "The sad part is, neither can I."

"I can," Chloe replies, unwilling to break his gaze now that she has it again. "You wanted to live, Lucifer. You wanted to _live_."

"I _was_ living," he says under his breath, sounding more than a little childish.

Chloe shakes her head. "You were existing. It's not the same."

He purses his lips and she allows him the time to make peace with her meaning. Then his face suddenly cracks in a brilliant smile. "You're quite good at this. I should've come to you over Linda ages ago."

"I'm hardly a professional," she protests, her bangs once more falling into her face as she shakes her head.

"Could've fooled me."

"Is that what she did? Explain people to you?"

"She has never _believed_ me, if that's what you mean," Lucifer clarifies, shifting to tuck his legs under him on the couch. The action is so simple and yet so bizarre coming from a man she has only ever known to exhibit decorum, but it puts her at ease. Because _he_ is at ease. "But she is quite excellent at puzzling out this whole human thing."

"She's lucky if she has," Chloe mutters. "Even _I_ haven't and I don't have an excuse."

"If it makes you feel any better, you've already about exhausted all of my knowledge of the divine."

Chloe arches a dark brow. "No, actually, that really doesn't make me feel better."

Lucifer smirks. His hair is drying and she is glad that she forced the comforter onto him, for holding still as they are, the room is chilly, even with their warm drinks. A gust of wind sends rain spraying against the window, distracting the pair of them.

"It's quite a downpour for this city," Lucifer softly observes.

"It's good. We need it. I just wish it didn't have to be on Trixie's Disneyland weekend."

"Ah, is that where the little sprout got off to?"

Chloe's lips twist with amusement as she looks away from the window and over to him. "Sprout?"

"Yes. Tiny human, tiny plant. Same thing, right?"

"See, this is where I get confused," Chloe presses, "do you even know you're being insulting or is it an accident?"

Lucifer slowly pulls his mug up to his lips. "Guess."

She narrows her eyes, trying to force a glare into her expression that she doesn't feel.

"I do love the challenge," he continues after a swallow. "It keeps me on my toes."

"What does?"

"Learning what will upset people and why. Discovering their motives for doing the horrible things they do. You don't get that much insight in Hell."

"You've spent a lot of time with a lot of bad people," she softly observes.

"That's why I cut off my wings. I'm not going back."

"I don't blame you."

"No?"

She lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "It sounds like you were just as much a prisoner as they were."

Lucifer purses his lips, pensive for a moment as he studies his tea. "Dear Old Dad would beg to differ."

"Let him."

His eyes flash as he peers up at her in surprise. "If I didn't know better, I'd say I'm having a bad influence on you."

"I know _you_ , Lucifer. I don't know him. "

He throws her a charming smile. "Siding with the devil, are we?"

Chloe doesn't let his pleasant looks sway her features as she keeps the seriousness in her voice. "Siding with my best friend."

Lucifer's smile threatens to fade as it shifts to reside in the curl of his lips, but then it spreads to his eyes as her words spread to his heart.

 _ **Please share your thoughts! And if, by chance, you find that my writing entertains, please do look up my pen name, K.M. Rice, and have a poke around my published works. :)**_


	7. Chapter 7

_**Author's Note:** I am leaving on an adventure overseas for roughly three weeks (to Ireland and Scotland!) so I was certain to get this out before I left. Expect more upon my return. Until then... enjoy! And if you go into withdrawals, you can always check out one of my books under **K.M. Rice**!_

 **Anything Brighter**

 **7.**

 _She wants to be near me_ , Lucifer muses as he allows himself to drink in the curve of Chloe's lashes, the funny way her eyes widen as she emphasizes the audacity her mother had to once recommend Trixie for an audition, the wild impishness that he can almost taste just beneath her skin, bridled for civility's sake but needing only a gentle suggestion to come out and play.

"She _knows_ how important it is for me to give Trixie a normal life, she _knows_ how-"

"I get to ask questions, too," he announces.

Chloe stares blankly and Lucifer thinks he can literally see her thoughts shifting track. She is still sitting across from him on her couch and he is on his, bundled beneath Trixie's pink comforter. Chloe's entire face wrinkles as she hisses, "What?"

Lucifer tilts his chin up in a haughty expression that is void of confidence. "Fair is fair."

She peers around the room for a moment, as if wondering what triggered this sudden change in subject. "You want to ask questions about my _mother_?"

He blinks and loses his haughty posture. "No," he drawls somewhat petulantly, "About humans. Your people. If you get to pick my brain - which is a disgusting expression, I might add - then I, in turn, get to _pick_ yours."

"You're right, that does sound pretty gross," Chloe mutters, grabbing her mug of lukewarm tea and taking a sip. It is nearly gone.

Lucifer lets out a soft noise of agreement before narrowing his eyes. "That was rude, wasn't it? Me interrupting you while you talked about one of your problems?"

She shrugs a dismissive shoulder. "It was more of a rant, but yes, most people would assume you're either an asshole or have ADD."

"ADD?" His grin is ridiculous. "Amazingly Delectably Delicious?"

Chloe snorts as she sets her mug down and Lucifer lets his face go lax.

"Yes, that was quite camp," he agrees.

She lets out a rough giggle then straightens, tucking her feet under her, mirroring him. " _Camp_. That is _so_ English. I mean, you said you escaped Hell and were spit out in the ocean, somehow swimming with a pair of wings, outside of LA, right?"

"Back to the divine, I see," he mutters as he leans back against the cushions, arching his neck back to peer up at the ceiling in the slight chance that she doesn't already know how bored he is. Instead of the plaster of a more affordable home, the underbelly of the roof is covered in white shiplap and he traces its lines with his eyes, feeling them adjust to the shadows above to allow for the lack of light; an ability he is sure Chloe doesn't have. An innate part of his being that sets him outside of everyone else.

 _Too human to be an angel. Too angelic to be a human. Weirdo is the appropriate term here, actually,_ he thinks.

Chloe ignores his theatrics. "The United States of America," she presses. "We haven't been a colony since, oh, 1776?"

"Yes, yes, I heard all about your little war," he replies to the ceiling, narrowing his eyes the slightest bit at a daddy long legs perched, statuesque, on its cobweb. "Honestly, are you giving _me_ a history lesson? You do realize that I'm-"

"English. From near London, I would guess. And yet you've never set foot there, have you?"

Lucifer had just started to search for a name for the spider when the thoughts are suddenly wrenched from his mind. He lets his chin drop suddenly, fixing her with an expression of such perplexion that Chloe can almost see him ruffling his feathers. His dark eyes bore into hers for the span of several heartbeats during which Chloe tries valiantly not to show any hint of amusement. She has rarely, if ever, seen him so genuinely shocked.

"So why the accent?" she presses softly. "The vocabulary from across the pond? The posh demeanor?"

His brows lower with his voice into an almost threatening display, but she knows better than to fear she has upset him. She has seen the twist in his heart when she _has_ upset him, and it nearly froze her lungs. She brushes the memory aside. All has been forgiven. She believes him.

Somehow, in the breadth of half a breath, she takes in the way one shoulder is higher than the other, the way his thumb is rubbing the cotton of the blanket, and the incredibly bright, aching yearning emanating from his being and there, in that half a breath, she vows to never be the cause of his pain again.

 _After all, what are friends for?_

Lucifer blinks, his tone lightly defensive as he replies, and Chloe smirks at his obliviousness to her thoughts. "I say _bucks_ and _Band-Aid_ and _bananas_." He winces when he knows he pronounced that last one off.

She arches a brow. "Ban _aaa_ nas?"

"Silence, you ruffian."

Another low giggle tumbles out of her mouth. "Is that the best you've got?"

"Colonial upstart." Lucifer shifts beneath the pink comforter, pulling it tighter around his shoulders, a thin line between his brows. "You are speaking to the Prince of Darkness."

"And he doesn't even have an explanation for being the black sheep of _Downton Abbey_."

He lifts one corner of his lips. " _You_ have the accent."

"Tell me," she insists, leaning forward.

A deep line forms between his brows and he speaks softly to himself. "Amenadiel and Maze _would_ be able to blend in better than me." He blinks and raises his voice. "He really is cruel, you know, giving benefits to those who don't even want nor appreciate them."

"You can learn to be less…. English," she offers, but she can't fight the cringe from her shoulders and face for the very thought of him with an American voice feels deeply violating.

"I can't because this is how I was made, and I can't tell you _how_ I was made, either." He lets out a grunt of amusement, though his brows are still tense. "I can't tell much at all, can I?"

"Why not?" she presses with a small smile in an attempt to alleviate his sudden cageyness. "Will it break my brain?"

Lucifer raises his dark brows, decorating his forehead with lines. "Do you have any memory of _your_ birth?"

Chloe pulls a disgusted face, making her look like Trixie. "Thank God."

"Possibly, I'll have to ask him about that one next time we have a chat, which will be never," Lucifer quips.

"So you can't tell me because you don't remember?"

"I've already _told_ you all I remember, and the more you keep pressing me for details, the more inadequate I realize I actually am at even recalling being one of the Heavenly Host."

She squints her eyes as she says, "But you couldn't possibly have been made with an English accent when you were created before nations. Before people."

To her surprise, Lucifer grins, and though it is beautiful, it is as fake as his swagger, and a part of her crusts over at the thought of him employing diversion tactics even with her. "Precisely" he replies, then shifts to get more comfortable. "Now, onto more important things, namely _me_ and my questions."

"But you didn't answer-"

"Some things, Detective, are best left untouched. I note that you are not, in turn, asking about my hair color, height, or ethnicity, so before I have fun painting you as a racist-"

"County-ist," she belligerently interjects.

"-You can fulfill your half of the best friend bargain by indulging me."

"Bargain? Being friends isn't a bargain, Lucifer."

He rolls his eyes. "Whatever you want to call it, then."

Chloe arches a brow. "Relationship."

He purses his lips for a moment. "I can't tell if I like the sound of that or if it makes me want to gag."

Despite the taunt, Chloe refuses to change her attentive demeanor. Lucifer seems dismayed with her lack of reaction to his prod but lets the smallest of smiles slip out before he shifts, lying down on the couch and peering at her with his head propped on pillows. Chloe stiffens as a languid smile curls his lips and he doesn't blink, refusing to break eye contact. She instinctively braces herself. That look can only mean trouble. And she likes it.

A flush rises up in her chest at her own thoughts, but she manages to fan out most of the heat before it reaches her cheeks. Because it is okay to like his thoughts. To like his curiosity. To bask in his attention.

 _Everything is okay_ , she reminds herself. _Human or not, he is still Lucifer. My black feather._ She can't suppress the smile that suddenly blooms with a little laugh as she shakes her head. "Why is it that I don't want to know what your first question is?"

"Because of my face," he says without altering it.

"I was being sarcastic."

"You seem utterly convinced that sarcasm suits you, but on the whole it is an entirely uncreative form of humor."

Chloe bats her eyelashes at him. "Question."

To her surprise, he lets out a small snorting laugh at her simpering expression. "Who was your favorite Spice Girl?"

Her guffaw is nearly drowned out by his follow up statement.

"Don't deny it - you were a fan in your youth. I can tell."

Chloe keeps her gaze fixed on the dancing delight on Lucifer's face, even as she narrows her eyes. "How could you _possibly_ know that?"

"Instinct."

"You don't _have_ instincts. You're not human. You didn't evolve."

"Oh, trust me. I'm evolving. Deduction, then."

"And what, pray tell, screams Spice Girls when you look at me?"

Lucifer bites his lower lip, cocking his head slightly as he appraises her. " _I can tell you what you want, what you really, really want_."

"And what's that?" she asks around a grin that she can't suppress. For the first time, she doesn't even have the urge to hide her smile. Her delight.

He clears his throat, raising his brows, seeming to absorb her openness like sunlight on cold skin. "You, Miss Chloe, are a master at misdirection but I can see your game. Answer. Now."

Chloe sighs theatrically and thumps back onto a pile of cushions on her sofa so that she is lying the opposite way as him. They peer at each other over her half-empty Chinese food cartons and the dregs of their tea. The rain continues to fall outside, and neither can tell if it's muffling or insulating their hope, but it feels good all the same. Isolated. Safe. Together. The room no longer feels chilly.

"Sporty," Chloe reluctantly says. "She actually did things, you know?"

Lucifer nods pensively. His voice is quiet. "Sporty…"

"I was never into organized sports, but I appreciated that she wasn't trying to get by on her looks. At least, she wasn't marketed that way. She was… tough."

In the quiet that follows, she can feel Lucifer's eyes on her like the promise of a fresh mug of tea and she relishes their warm spices.

"I guess I want to be… stronger." She lets out a slow exhale. "Is that a good enough answer for you? And what is this, therapy?"

Lucifer shifts, his voice playful. "I actually have no idea who the individual Spice Girls are. You could've told me Dopey and I would have ran with it."

Chloe stares for a moment then bursts out in a high-pitched laugh.

" _That_ ," Lucifer claims, pointing a finger at her as he likewise chuckles, "is a full-blown cackle. Are you certain you're not a witch?"

"Oh, I'd love to be a witch," she gushes, hugging a corner of her blanket. "Then I could cast spells on people."

He arches a brow. "You do know how women became witches in the Middle-ages?"

"Yeah. They committed the crime of being female and pisssing someone off which got them burnt at the stake."

"They went out into the woods," Lucifer says lowly and slowly, some of his geniality dimming, "and summoned the Devil. Haven't you heard this one?"

"Memorizing demented details isn't really my thing," she replies as she adjusts the blanket around her.

"But apparently it's mine. See, these women, these poor, pagan women were accused of having slept with _me_ and as proof, some pompous bastard would point out a mark on their bodies supposed to be the Devil's Mark left by my tongue or claws or some such nonsense and that was all the proof they needed to _kill_ them." He pauses to catch his breath and all amusement has fled Chloe's face. "Of course, there never was any such mark. I can hardly be _summoned_. And I could bite you right now and it would look the same as if Detective Douche did it. But they used it as an excuse, the Christians did, to _murder_ people."

"Wow," Chloe breathes. She has the wayward desire to make light of what he has just said because it is darkening the light she now feels between them. But this isn't history to him. This is life. "You've been carrying that around a long time."

"I suppose I have," he mumbles, shifting his gaze to the pink comforter around him.

"Wait, Christians, you say?"

"What about them?"

"Your tone… it sounded as if it was a dirty word."

"It's not a dirty word, but you must admit that some terrible things have been done in my father's name."

She nods stiffly. "But Christianity is where you're from… isn't it?"

Lucifer lifts his dark eyes to her, allowing her question to hang in the air before them like the smoke of a snuffed out candle for several moments before speaking. "What was your own answer to the impossibility of my accent actually being from England?"

Chloe presses her lips together as she thinks for a moment before answering. "That it can't be because countries didn't exist before the angels?"

"What else didn't exist until after humans?"

"Religion," she whispers, her eyes unable to leave his. Unable to leave, because existential truths seem attached to every movement of their trust, inextricably linked to every mundane, whispered question.

Lucifer's voice is soft. "There is no wrong or right, Detective, only perspective and blood. Anyway, this was meant to be _my_ Q&A." He raises his voice. " _So_. I know your favorite Spice Girl, but what about your favorite pasta dish?"

Chloe blinks several times before raising her voice. "These are all questions about me, not humanity."

"But you _are_ human."

"So?"

"So you're my insight into your kind."

She arches a brow, fixing him with a stoic expression. "You _can_ just admit that you're curious about me, you know."

Lucifer's brows lower. "I didn't think that was a secret. Was that a secret? I thought I'd made it very clear upon our meeting that you are endlessly interesting."

Chloe rolls her eyes even as she smirks. "There are people infinitely more interesting than me."

"Name one."

She lets out a soft guffaw. "My mother."

"Hardly."

"Oh please, you totally fanboyed over her."

"Did _not_."

"You're a terrible liar," she presses, her smile growing and pulling out one from him, as well. And just like that, the light is back.

"Moving _on_ ," he presses, "who else is more interesting than you?"

"The President."

"Ugh." Lucifer arches his neck and lets out a little groan. "Boring, boring, _booooring_." He refocuses on her. "If your favorite pasta dish must remain a secret, then I demand to know the answer to another question."

"What?" Chloe asks around a giggle. "Which pinky toe is bigger?"

"No," Lucifer nearly squeaks then pulls a face at the crack in his own voice. "Seriously, one is bigger? Don't answer that. Have you ever done drugs, what, when, and why?"

"That's actually a really easy one. None, never, and because I've honestly never felt the urge."

Lucifer raises himself up on one shoulder, his eyes alight. "You're not joking."

She purses her lips and shakes her head. "Not at all."

"But you were raised in Weedville."

Chloe shrugs. "That's more northern California. But still, it's not like I haven't had the chance."

"But if you had the chance they whyever didn't you seize it?"

The confusion in his voice grates against her thoughts, but she isn't certain why. "Like I said: no interest."

He narrows his dark eyes. "But haven't you any curiosity about what it's like?"

"Not really."

He studies her with his lips slightly parted, gazing in stupefied wonder for several moments before letting out a soft, "Huh."

"Huh?" Chloe imitates with an arched a brow. "And what's your answer? Why have _you_ done every drug known to man?"

Lucifer sinks back down against the cushions. "To remember what it was like."

"What what was like?"

"Coming here for the first time." His voice is soft and smooth, his eyes slightly glazed from the echoes that only he can hear, and she instinctively knows that he is made of more starlight than her. "Everything was so fast and terrifying and confusing and brilliant and beautiful and disorienting. So much… pain and glory and pleasure. I was completely lost and yet completely at home. Bewildered yet loving every intoxicatingly humbling heartbeat. Now, of course, I'm much more used to the hustle and bustle of motives and impulses and colors. But back then… back then it was…" He narrows his eyes the slightest bit and Chloe pictures the spinning of the stars in the night sky and feels very small amongst them. Then he blinks and his dark orbs seem to sharpen as they fix on her. "New."

Chloe's expression is as pinched as her thoughts. She doesn't like to contemplate a world where a divine being could be so spiritually starved as to crave such overwhelming stimulation.

"There was so much to learn," he continues quietly. "And the learning was so simple. So quick. Every hour there was a new discovery. A new experience. But now it's all so… muted, somehow. And every discovery takes much more…"

She waits for him to say "work." "Effort." "Struggle." Instead, his answer makes her forget to breathe.

"Pain."

His gaze isn't on her. His eyes are dark and listless, his expression somewhat drawn. As if he is retreating into himself and taking the stars with him.

In that moment, she understands why his confusion over her impulse control over drugs bothers her: children don't have impulse control. Children are confused and drowning in input. She does her best to make Trixie's path clear for her, but there is so much to learn. Lucifer has assimilated with envious ease in all the ways that he needed to get by. He has absorbed culture with a voracious thirst, took a crash course on sexuality, and somehow learned how to build a mask and a persona to protect his innermost being without ever understanding what he was doing, nor why. Because the bold brush strokes are always the easiest to see, to feel, and now he was being forced to make his way through relationships and emotions that he didn't understand, not even intellectually. Which was why she had always thought of him as different. Unable to engage. Somehow less.

 _Calico kittens._

When it came to grief and affection and all of the changeable, nuanced emotions she had grown accustomed to like the wind, Lucifer was a stranger. Because he had only lived among humans for five years. Because he only knew how to play the part of one, not to be one. Yet all the same, the ancient light of the bond between them only seemed to flourish, despite their missteps, and she embraced it. She embraced it with an abandon she had not felt since she was very young, and there was no going back. She couldn't dim his light in her. Which made this moment all the more difficult.

Because Chloe was confronting for the first time the fact that while Lucifer might look like a beautifully grown man, he only had the emotional intelligence of a five year old.

"Fuck," she exhales.

 ** _Please share your thoughts - the reviews are treasured!_**


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